S. E. VENART: THE FALLING ACTION
S. E. Venart THE FALLING ACTION She was sixty-nine or was she seventy? Some people said a ripe old age. It’s said that if the young learn that they are dying, they become holy. I suppose it’s their face. It is said, anyway. Above the barn sink, the glass held the reflection of a barn cat leaping for a barn swallow. I saw it go down, slapping my wet hands and seething: Shit ! W ell, that’s over. I looked everywhere for meaning: in her soft-tissued pyjamas, in her perhaps-holy face. I read poems to her that were little stories: man walks into autumn beach town, is a skunk, finds a skunk, the end. I made lemon custard. I set spoons on the two-by-four table. This is my gold-packed love. I pushed in her puritan bench. The other side of the window bloomed lilac— I can’t say what I want that to mean— she was already above me, outside me, beyond me? Still I brought a bowl to her table. Each spoonful she spat into the napkin, her f