Straining Upward

What's a poor banana to do?

Papaw Found

his keys under aunt Nellie’s left breast.

“Wonder how they got there,”
she said & grinned.
He slipped the keys into his pocket.
“He’ll never find his watch,” she said.

Years later, after aunt Nellie’s

terrible accident (she got
flattened by a lawn tractor),
there was an economic downturn.
Nothing could change the things I needed.

I never felt ashamed.  I dropped $10 a pop

on beer & hogged down pounds of butterfly shrimp.
Papaw slapped my face for calling
mother a slut.  I’d heard him say it, too.
“You want everything!”  he said.
I never felt ashamed.

“You raised me, goddammit!”

I hollered.  “Can’t you listen?”
His mind lapsed worse than a monkey’s.
He answered in theatrical non sequiturs,
never on target, except with guilt.
He hammered at my shame,
trying to break, in me, something
that must have been missing.
I walked away cold.

Searching for his pocket watch,

Papaw exhumed Nellie & got committed
to the wacko ward.  He was declared
incompetent.  He had always been
a miserable old fucker.  Like that,
I took all his property.  It sold
for a very fair price.  Who’s spoiled now?
I was able to retire to Mexico.Don’t know what ever happened to Papaw.