Where to Begin My Memoir?
by Ken Wheatcroft-Pardue


(a) My head bops to the Falcon’s worn shocks.
Splintered palm fronds, shattered windows,
downed billboards, telephone poles lean north.
A woman’s name, Carla, on everyone’s lips.

(b) A burnt bed flung into the mud.
A woman’s scream,
a sound like broken glass.

(c) Sulphur smell, burnt end of a match.
My mother’s face visible then dark.
Her eyes allow no no’s,
only the logic of the match
as she presses it over and over
into the attic’s white insulation.






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