Onism By Debra Kaufman

Onism

	The realization of being stuck in just one body
	that inhabits only one place at a time. –Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

It’s not too bad here. 
A gal does my laundry.
They leave a light on in the hall.
Is this where I live now?

A gal does my laundry.
My mother died in her own bed. 
Is this where I live now?
I washed the cancer from her sheets.

My mother died in her own bed. 
I helped lay her out in the parlor,
having washed the cancer from her sheets.
That’s the way we did then.

I helped lay her out in the parlor.
Time was, a man put his name on a shingle—
that’s the way we did then—
and declared himself something. 

My father put his name on a shingle.
I still know how to gentle sheep.
He declared himself a blacksmith.
We dressed the barn cats in doll clothes.

I know how to gentle sheep.
Talk only matters if it’s real. 
We dressed the barn cats in doll clothes.
I told that tall one who's always singing,

talk only matters if it’s real. 
Heaven is a mist I step easily through.
I told that tall one who's always singing,
just do what needs doing. 

Heaven is a mist I step easily through.
It’s not too bad here, 
you just do what needs doing. 
They leave a light on in the hall.

Debra Kaufman is the author of the poetry collections God Shattered, Delicate Thefts, The Next Moment, and A Certain Light, as well as three chapbooks, many monologues and short plays, and five full-length plays. Her new collection, Outwalking the Shadow, is forthcoming from Redhawk Publications. http://www.Debrakaufman.info