TUT TODT

TUT TODT

my parents

once young
now elderly

now
dead

demanded on
a daily basis
I be respectful
write nicely

cherish every moment
of what they did to
(sorry, did for) me

keep that overwhelming love
I felt and showed
when I was young
         the love of
one
who could not
have been more wrong
could not
have been more
useless

Oh, those gaslit days,
chip off the old block
determined
to
shape me as

strange how
time takes, took,
eviscerates
all that 1940s
dapper Dachau elegance

like demure store-front mannequins
neat in their flexible
moment of life’s capture

waiting
upon the rapture of bone

force
to split a dove

tut todt
you would be shocked
to know
     how you
are remembered

beyond your pay grade;
beyond your conception