ten funeral fragments
BY SAM SAX
—for my grandfather Maxwell
—for my grandfather Maxwell
|
one.
two. three. four. five. six. seven. eight. nine. x. |
they buried my grandfather alive with his entire library.
the last time harry houdini walked beneath stage lights he knew he was going to die. the doctors warned him in plain english another blow to the chest you'll be finished, kid. maxwell had a smoker's heart the size of an abandoned sky scraper. massive. empty. only good for casting shadows beating proud and cold against that crooked cityscape. the doctors warned him in plain english. when they found him in a pool of himself beneath that queens streetlight his face held surprise how a child's hand holds illusion. the first time houdini escaped from his casket he's quoted as having said, the weight of earth is killing. they buried him alive with no photographs of his family beneath that hillside overlooking the city of his birth he can almost taste his childhood in the dark stale air he's learned to treat like a woman from within his office of coffin and paper there is no skylight cutting knives through the darkness no light to read by and besides the suffocation this is the hardest to breathe how oxygen must taste from a gas chamber's belly a family's forgotten tongue a phantom limb twitching with a dance still in the blood instead he studies his memories fingers the damp pages careful catalogues, the cartography of his family the magician performed his own burial three times. always barely surviving. he remembers the girlchild conceived on a bed of rye whiskey the wife with shotguns for eyes that only bloomed when he'd make himself caress her triggers the three sons he treated as a dictionary he remembers them now as a pasture of forgotten sunflowers faces bent in mourning to the ground a field of forgotten immigrants detained by chain links in the armory of his house. pulling dead rabbits out the empty to feed his children. the weight of earth is killing. each time my mother pulled her father from the drunk of his car where he had been living dead for years stale cigarettes floating in an ocean of mistakes a bottle of gin in the shape of a woman a shredded manuscript stained as his teeth he felt this weight. as far as i know i have never died but have often been mistaken for dead and often been buried alive embalmed in a bottle of bottom shelf whatever i am this constant walking apology this hijack of grandpa's hijinks and stage tricks this pigeon pull from mouth and naming poems this sawing in half with a microphone to show his drunk ghost still intact i know what it feels like to be drowning in earth clawing my way through dirt toward surface always barely surviving call this. magic. |
sam sax is a bay area based writer, educator, and performer. he’s oakland’s first two-time queer grand slam champion. sam curates the new shit show, a reading series in san francisco aimed at producing new poetry. he has toured internationally, performing at universities, slams, basements, alleyways, and amphitheaters. sam is currently leading writing and literacy workshops for queer at risk youth.