Tonight's Poet Corner: Doing The Dirty Work

Doing The Dirty Work
by Belinda Roddie

I couldn't afford a funeral for
my jackass of an eighty-year-old father,
so I shoplifted a shovel and buried him
behind my brother's house. Then I went
back to my own yard and used
the same shovel to dig as big of a hole
as possible to jump down into so I could
be away from the weight of the sky
for a while. When you came to see me,

and you found me curled up at the bottom
of a self-made pit, giggling as if I were
an impish child gone half-mad, you cried
when I had really wanted you to laugh instead.
You scrubbed all the dirt off me yourself,
kissing me on all the tender spots rubbed raw
by both the sponges and your erratic, dancing
fingers. At least you didn't leave unwanted
tattoos on my skin like sweet Daddy's belt buckle
did on weekdays after two glasses of whiskey, neat.

We grabbed take-out once I was squeaky clean,
and over burgers and onion rings, you asked me
how I had managed to walk out of a hardware store
without paying for a freaking shovel. Somehow,
I think the cashier looked the other way. I think
she knew I had demons to smother in dry California
earth. She let me limp past those sliding glass doors
with a tool that could have doubled as a weapon.
I had been tempted, after all, to bash the bastard's
head in myself were he still alive, but his heart
gave up on him first. It said, with valves extended
like middle fingers, "Fuck it all. I've wasted enough
goddamn time on your old, abusive ass."