Keeping You

[ellz483]

I wish I had the hands of Michelangelo
so I could sculpt another you
out of my tears and all your ashes;
not a David, but a you---
your lungs, your heart, our eyes
fired in a kiln of Bic lighters
until sooty and black.
 
I would stuff you with those million foam filters
that you flicked between the bricks on our front porch
so you’d be squishy and soft,
then scent you in Irish Spring
and whiten with Crest.
I’d mind never to set you too close
to the microwave, so you’d never get
nuked out of existence---
 
again.
 
Once you were the Marlboro man
and we rode together, not on a Camel,
but in a ‘97 Ford Taurus:
You in the front,
me in the car seat behind you.
We sang along to “Mrs. Robinson,”
blew bubbles,
and I learned your particular
“drag racing.”
Those trips to Circle K
meant ice-cream drumsticks,
more fuel [for your   a d d i c t i o n]
and not telling mom.
_________________________________________________________________________
 
You built our home out of old cardboard packs
in the center of a ring-around-the-rosie.
 
But when we all fell down,
you never
               got
                   back
                          up.
 
 
My Marlboro man.