The Lice, and: Scythe, and: Double Occupancy, and: Devotional

Abstract

The Lice, and: Scythe, and: Double Occupancy, and: Devotional Marlo Starr (bio) The Lice The first event is known to have been an expulsion, and the last is hoped to be a reconciliation and return. —Marilynne Robinson, Housekeeping Our story begins with an expulsion. Mom swivelsto count and recount the milling brood. Us,sticky and slick with shampoo. See, I'm just below,on the back porch, crouched between her knees,my bright scalp bared for the biteof the comb. The boys launch cicadas onto the roof,the girls mock-scold, their heads lacquered whiteto drown the new colonies. Except for J who propsthe Children's Bible against the freezer boxto study its pictures: a sword bars the gardenwith orange flames, fig-leafed Adam and Eveclutch each other at the gates. J drops the tomeon the cement slab where cloudy drops pool.I try to make out the teeming multitude.Mom holds the comb for me to see:"You needed proof?" [End Page 13] Scythe There is a diagram imprinted in me,a first-tooth memory, my early phantomroot. I'd like to hold myself againstits hard edge, to arrange the giveand sag of me into its stony relief,but the order of the world is lesstaut, a false equation of hieroglyphand brassy machine. Herethe remains of a marbling tulipinfection. All those clawed headsmake a garish heap on the floor.In the clean language of want,a fixed lexicon for love:even the epitaph lies. The silenceis not still. They are mowingand mowing your grave [End Page 14] Double Occupancy My father purchases the burial plots years before she dies. A doubleoccupancy cement bunker, the bottom for my mother. She sits sunk in the reclining chair with her eyes closed, listening or not. Sometimes she slathers Vaseline on her cracked heels and covers them with socks. I move houses and give away the round table, the plants. I move houses again and give away the bed I shared for a time with someone and then with someone else. A month before her funeral, she asks my father to spend the extra money for a plot where they will lie side by side. I sit outside in the cold sun with my sister, the baby crying. "Mom" in the call record makes me think I've missed her again. There are still dishes in the sink when I leave for the airport. Someone in the flat dark is waiting for me to return across the distance. I press my temple to the glass. [End Page 15] Devotional I read words but don't hear God in them. —Susan Howe Friends send words on grieving. Instead, I cometo rely on the mystery of facts—the composition of tears, more mineral than fluid, a different saltarchitecture for relief or prayer. The book of photos magnifies their scale: landscapes repeatin miniature, binding crystal, the substance of stars or stone. On the bus, the crumbling paperwhitesgather in my lap, fallen from the nest of pages, the dusting of petals and pollen—how didn't I notice? Lost in the private room of a sentence. Under the microscope, spires of elationburst in fireworks of glass, while onion tears bloom in the dense symmetry of fern. [End Page 16] The bus rumbles across the city's grid.Through the windows, the stream of red brick material as myth, continuous as a voicemoving over the face of the waters. [End Page 17] Marlo Starr marlo starr is a writer and assistant professor of English at Wittenberg University. Her poems have appeared in The Threepenny Review, Ghost City Review, Napkin Poetry Review, and elsewhere. Copyright © 2023 Marlo Starr