A Moiety: Let Me Have My Frozen Share

In a fresh shirt at the edge of the room,
his eyes blue as menthol aftershave blinked at the tinsel.

A death-bed epistle made the rounds—his ex, to those
she loved. A former cousin-in-law’s first-born’s new girlfriend

dropped it into his inconstant hands. He jolted at the whiff of peony,
at the familiar loops, the knots and the long up-sweep of the hand

even as a word ended. But why was he even here?
Well, where in hell else would he go?

He was no fool. Now he set aside a half-consumed portion
of mortified beef. Now he huffed to the kitchen without the walker

for a slice of that damn buttercream thing they were all raving about.
Now he was taking his mouthful onto the lake in the Studebaker,

the two of them, skidding in circles, headlights swerving broad arcs
across the ice, and on the dark, broken branches

caught in the layered subsurface
where they glowed in the gorgeous night like x-rays.

TOM CARRIGAN

Tom Carrigan was born in Rutland, Vermont, in 1949. He has been an educator in classrooms and libraries, devising strategies for evaluating online information and integrating graphic novels into ELL curricula. His poems have appeared in Rattle, The Collagist, Poetry Northwest, Rust & Moth, and other publications. Tom volunteers with Beacon Prison Rides, a project that provides free transportation for families between the Beacon, New York train station and nearby prisons.