Care for Relations

What if your mother banged one huge piano chord upstairs,

then did it again, the very same chord?

You’d probably pee your pants too, licking the dry crumbs

of cornbread, your supper. Such was my gaiety

those weepy afternoons, she said. Oh, I had my little luxuries.

My bottle of mold inhibitor, though it made my nose run

and turned my nails to cardboard. And a whole library

of at least three or four glorious coffee-table books!

Many a long night when the rain lulled me into strange thoughts

I would press those full-color pages to my body

and feel the intensity of, for instance, grass tickling my legs,

or the wings of a hen caressing my earlobe.

I never had need of a lover. I had Picasso and the Russian steppe.

I had snails, and a thing called foie gras, which is like duck fat.

I had wine to compare against other, superior wines,

and all the time in the world to make a judgment.

Randy Gentry

RANDY GENTRY lives with his family in New Jersey. His stories and poems have appeared, or will soon appear, in the following publications: The New Orleans Review, Crab Creek Review, Firefly/Number One, Illuminations: a Journal of International Writing, Perigee, Barnwood, The Green Hills Literary Lantern, and Mangrove Review.