elysabeth faslund - Scorpions*

I should have been a snarled piece of tortured driftwood,
Ocean-etched,
Seething with remembrances of roots...
And glinting leaves with choirs of birds.
Now, I brood sullen on a shore where gulls perch deadly,
In search of a slow crab, and
Slower twilight.
I pose with hollows sculpted in my memory...of another's
Scorpions.
But I remember the Sun...tugging a towel to fluff away
Sand clinging to pearled-wet skin, and
Gritty, carpeted feet...from granular-mangled sunscapes.
No. No god or parent could have foretold my escape to a
Beach...where my Mother was the foam, and
Her love washed me in waves...
Tides beckoning me to follow.

My mother could summon scorpions out of the Dead Land,
Punishing me with them if I stayed away from
The funerals...
I was never haunted by those ghosts, as she said I'd be.
Instead, they laughed...and,
Spoke to me.
My mother never knew...they did not speak to her in life, or
Death.
They were only dead and gone.
I will not grieve for them...
In Time, my mother may remember the sparkle in their eyes.

Until then, there are doors to close quietly, and
Dishes to be washed.
There are scorpions to be killed...they peer at me,
Arching their tail, waiting for the right moment
To vindicate my mother.
She has never loved the dead.
She has never loved.

I will sing loudly those hymns of a cracked, rusty soul...
Remembering that I have smiled. Laughed.
There can never be scorpions in Heaven.
Though once there was venom...
In Paradise.

elysabeth faslund

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/scorpions-2/