hades; thinking of aunt rena while reading james joyce

mourning
is a spectator sport
standing
still
in the
alone (lee lea lie) collective.

somebody wishes
to be me
wishing to be somebody else:
performance/our nature

funny how rena’s stomach growled
through suspense and pretense of Spence’s death
while my sisters and i
laughed. cried. giggled
in youth
gone bad.

once you are dead you are dead

ninety nine years of breath
leaving the matriarch in a field of patriarchy --
exhaled in kool smoke --
buried ant.

joke’s on us:

we’re
they’re
you’re

under a spinning attempt
to find any home -
where you once
bloomed,
thought you did.

dead.
all, us,
stephen,

flowers black from frosty rot

beating time
in the performance
to change the air of the room.

my punctuation
remains
?

omphalos omphalos omphalos

Thank you.
How grand we are this morning