I feel sorry for words trapped in the boxes of their meanings. Abattoir sounds so nice I confuse it with boudoir. Why can’t abattoir mean boudoir?
I was the only one who saw my grandmother read Barbara Cartland paperbacks. No one believed me because she culled and plucked chickens, rototilled and cultivated garden beds, steam pressed sheets, sewed her own clothes, and cracked her fingers raising shed walls. The week after her funeral I dragged a box from her closet. A pink glow puffed when I pulled the flaps open. See?
My preference is abattoir means boudoir. I suppose a boudoir can be an abattoir. My mother must have thought so too, because she threw away the books.
My wife buys our black Pomeranian pink sweaters and matching bows. They give our dog the air of a back-cover Barbara Cartland author portrait. People look at me funny when I walk her. It brings back a memory though: my grandmother’s lips moved like wind-ruffled straw while she read.
Lately it is hard for me to suspend disbelief. When I watch The Wizard of Oz I take a few mental steps back until the crew, camera, studio doors, and ceiling lights are in the picture.
I am stepping back to watch my grandmother reading. I am imagining what she looked like younger. I am imagining what she would look like older, wrapped in what she always wanted, pink chiffon, fringe, and ruffles, furs, pearls, and a plumed hat bigger than all that.
Stephen Roger Powers started writing poetry almost twenty years ago to pass time in the middle of the night when he was too energized to sleep after coming off the stage in comedy clubs around the Midwest. He is the author of three poetry collections published by Salmon Poetry in Ireland. He also has a collection of short stories forthcoming from Closet Skeleton Press.
