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The Oil
and the Wine
Mom is collapsed on the left
side of the bed,
Heaving and twisted in the tan sheets.
Light through the shutters hangs on the bloody, balled tissues.
I can smell her sleep and the sickness from here.
Uneven ridges of the fake-stucco paint from the hallway wall
dig into my back underneath my torn, yellow T-shirt.
I strain my eyes to see through the tears and the cracks of my fingers and
over my worn-out knees
Though bulk of Aunt Joanie’s black polyester skirt blocks her doorway,
I can still see her.
Her gaunt, yellow face and her hair matted in clumps.
The purple of her eyes flung back and drowning.
Her throat vomiting unintelligible groans
Her head rolling and lolling from pillow to pillow.
But the elders of the church are with her...
a mass of corduroy and slacks ,
they have brought vegetable oil and generic wine
to minister to her flailing needs.
The back door slams:
My Dad shoves into the room
Sending my Aunt heavily into the wall.
Knocking my sister’s oil painting down,
He comes through again, the smell of cigarettes
and beer
Seething in the wake of the other men:
One of the elders turns,
takes off his steel-frame glasses
and wipes his face with a callused hand
A shove, and the door slams again,
Leaving no one and nothing
But a scrawled path of refrigerator magnets and shattered glass.
I hear myself scream.
Later:
All that is left is the fading siren.
My sister’s black and orange sunset -
Torn and broken on the graying carpet.
Aunt Joanie hugs me to her.
Twisting and crying, I cannot move
I cannot get away from her
choking me to her blouse and whispering,
Half sobbing:
They poured in the oil and the wine
The kind that restoreth my soul
They found me bleeding and dying
On the Jericho road,
And they poured in the oil and the wine.
©
Stephen Douglas Steinhaus
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