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DAUGHTER:
He looks at me this certain way, I don’t know, like he’s undressing
me. I just can’t think of him as dad. What mom sees I
don’t know. He chews and spits and has crusty
fingernails. Like I could just imagine him picking me up at
the football game probably parked in the far corner away from the
lights in that Pinto or whatever it is he drives. I’d rather
walk. It’d be safer. Living in this apartment is bad
enough now but add him in, like, what, am I supposed to ever have
friends over or what? It sounds like a joke or something but
the wallpaper is peeling and there are ants.
Ants!
MOTHER: Randy isn’t bad. It’s
something. Cora should appreciate that. She should know
I’m doing it for her because there needs to be a dad. But,
sometimes I catch myself staring basically through Randy. It’d
be easy enough to forget what I see when I look through him, the old
winding drive up Two Elms with split rail fences and leaves turning
redgold, the low purring glide of Gerald’s Jag, roof-down, my hair
flagging. If only Randy would say something, anything, notice
me at all when I get that faraway look, snap me out of
it.
FATHER: I love it when you call me
that, call me that again, honey, what was it? Ahh, yes, just
like that, ‘Poppy-daddy,’ say it! ‘Poppy-daddy’ yes! Hola
conchita bonita, esta en fuega, lick me till I shiver.
Tomorrow we’ll sail the bay naked as newborns and you can read me
Neruda in your cat voice, ‘Ya no la quiero, es cierto, pero cuánto
la quise,’ I’ll feed you hummus and rose petals and won’t any more
need to feel old, old like Margaret with her tits flat as
sacks.
CAMERA,
CONFESSOR: All around
the stadium-lights little white moths circle and bump in the caress
of night as ram Randy on a vacant street hears the far crowd
roar. He tucks his shirt after a quick fucking, off to fetch
Cora. And, Margaret in her nighty burns cigarette by cigarette
their pictures, Caribbean vacationing on that 37-footer,
lateens white like feathers against the blue bowl of the sky.
Gerald doesn’t think of them at all anymore, not with Bonita
heaving, cleansing him of what slim trace love remained when Cora’s
DNA came back definitely, definitely not his.
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