Persephone

Blue Couch

88 Blue Couch I was old enough to remember the most beautiful of the kittens peeing on and how my mother dashed out with Clorox, turned the royal velvet yellow. Deep blue, her favorite color. I wonder if she turned that middle pillow face down, like a child with its face on the table. Years later, about to be carted out of rooms that will be empty for the 5th winter, it’s still a soft cove, a cave, like her arms. She camouflaged what was worn and stained, flat as a burned-out heart under throws that never were the right color, jade and tourmaline flowers, tweedy azures and mauves and greys. My first kiss on these now half empty pillows, flimsy as some grey Wednesdays seem. My sister hid behind it so close to the radiator it must have nearly scorched her blonde curls when Fitzi un-zipped and wanted me to touch what he’d forced me to in the Drive-In. When I used to come back, my mother curled at one end with me at the other, dozed under the blue afghan, unraveling, as what was deeper inside. I did interviews 89 on the couch after science contest wins, offered David white brownies, hoped he’d want to slide my transparent blouse down past my aqua felt jumper and lay under the man who wanted to do what, when he could, after we married, couldn’t. Cleaning the apartment I always fluff what’s left of the pillows and fold them over the thread bare back as if to make what was as good as it could be tho I am the only one walking thru the grey air into rooms no one touches ...