Jones, M.P., IV

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The Open Repository @Binghamton (The ORB)

FUNERAL GAMESM. P. JONES IVlmagine you were stillhere, that you never leftyour wife and your childrenin the night, to cross eightstates for as many years.Your daughter gallops onwardlike a charioteer, but at the lake’sedge, your sons are still buildingthe fire‚ watching the bobberdrift‚ suspended betweenthe whiskey-dark surface and stiffautumn air. They are boxingyour ears where you lieas still as an old photograph,scar visible on your forehead‚bottle spilled besidethe ring of rocks, drainingthe dregs for that contestalready won. You told meyou were happiest at sixteen,when the girls too goodto speak to you at schoolwould open their windowsJones 561Jones: Funeral GamesPublished by The Open Repository @ Binghamton (The ORB), 2014slowly in the clean darkness.This, too, will smolderuntil moming comesand I shake this miserabledream, borrowed like a leakyJon boat from some silentsemaphore‚ keys to a houselong gone, locks changed,the stucco now a shadeof robin’s egg. The neighborsmoved and left behindno forwarding address.572Harpur Palate: a Literary Journal, Vol. 14, Iss. 2 [2014], Art. 20https://orb.binghamton.edu/harpurpalate/vol14/iss2/20

Funeral Games

https://orb.binghamton.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2089&context=harpurpalate

Funeral Games

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