The sight of crystal marbles descending from a grey sky, grey like silver fox smoke choking the walls after a fire, reminds me of our old apartment, five stories above encircling projects like camouflaged cannon fodder just before an ambush, a beacon of poorly executed gentrification like a lighthouse enduring a new category of hurricane but the light's out and no one of authority is coming to replace it—ever. I see stubble cigars in the ashtray from my stepfather and he's slicing open yet another white and brown box. I remember my mother remarking he's gotten so far into his collection and Tuesday's barely over. At five I laughed, only thinking his thunderous coughs will subside—like they always did. Silently at twenty-one I watched paramedics carry him out on a stretcher fish eyed, the last way I would see him before his funeral, wishing I had objected more instead of laugh as his blood amassed through the years after each cough, yet another hit of yet another lung killer not far behind, clear oxygen fighting for a place in line.
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Beautiful and painful. "clear oxygen/ fighting for a place in line" is such a perfect ending.
Wow hugely powerful.