-It’s that goddamn God again-

Requiem for Rose Giambastini

the walnuts are falling.

they drop from a plastered ceiling.

but how?

It hurts when a walnut bops you on the head––

when another stings the back of the neck

as you bend to grab the walnut (that bopped you
on the head in the first place) from the green

linoleum.

these nuts have hard

shells.
one way is to split them open by hammer on the tabletop.

best to cover them first.

those old nutcrackers weren’t meant to crack walnuts.

they don’t work the way you want them to work.

they open just wide enough to fit the walnut between the handles, but
too wide for the palm of your early hand to see the process through.

the walnut slides around haphazardly within the nutcracker.

It takes a sure hand and bothersome placement.

you've got to find the equator–– presume the other side,

                                                    the dark side of the walnut,

goes ‘round to meet the teeth of the cracker's lower jaw

and when the time comes to realize where the falling 

walnuts come from; from what? the hand of God?

a paradise of water-stained plaster and a chorus of disturbing
laughter from those in attendance standing in the hallway?  no. but––

It doesn’t matter. I’ll hold to the imagery

and when my maternal grandmother dies, the walnuts,

if they fall at all, fall far from the realm of enchantment, but––

with enough lingering interest in the charm of the thing to tell yet another story.

1017 / 1948 (?)