poem from "Shards": Maudie Cobwebs

"Your children too good to play with my boy?
Best believe I'll remember this slight!"
Said Maudie to her stuffy neighbor one day
And she forced a laugh when that woman's son died.
"He got a fever and it serves her right
I won't be bakin' no sympathy pies for her type."

"The world done me wrong, so bad and so long,
I'm gonna do it one worse!"
So when Maudie inherited a Funeral Home,
she lived there and she drove her own hearse.
She was a poor pregnant waif 'til a family will gave her wealth
But she kept her curtains drawn and her new gowns to herself.
Poor Maudie Cobwebs.
She never goes out.

"The world don't want my little son,
He came out of wedlock, you see.
So he's gonna stay right by my side and safe."
'til one day in the mirror, only half-shocked
the boy saw he'd grown horns, tail and a furry frock.

Maudie sang:
"The world done us wrong, so bad and so long,
I'm gonna do it one worse.
I'm gonna make a house of this funeral home
and I'm drive around in a hearse.
I don't want no smilin' visitors.
They'd just scream when they see my son
I don't want no charity to give or receive ,
because when I was poor there was none."
Poor Maudie Cobwebs
She had not a friend.

Hardship, they say, hardens most shells,
but it can widen the hearts and minds of the toughest lot.
But for Maudie, they say, it softened her skin,
hardened the heart and it made her brain rot.

Poor Maudie, livin' like a corpse.
Poor Maudie. What could be worse.

"The world done me so wrong, so bad and long.
I'm gonna do it one worse,
Don't need no love, don't want no friends
I've already got son, home, and a hearse."
Her boy done changed to a demon
Her house a southern tourist joke.
If you see her phantom, don't make a meeting.
Maudie is an unpleasant ghost.
But that's just Maudie Cobwebs' way.
She was a bitch, long before she decayed.

ODE TO JOY: Part 1-2: Infant Sorrow

2.     Infant Sorrow

“LET ME die!” Bri screeched.

The pain racking her body was that of a thousand hells, pushing its way through her like a demon.

“Mrs. Hookwell, try to breathe,” came a voice.

“Don’t tell me to BREATHE!”

The midwife could be heard huffing as she dipped a rag into a bucket of cold water. It was slapped onto Bri’s head as her screams began to build again. She felt as though she were slowly being split in two by some monster that clawed out of her from the inside.

“Where is Orion!” she demanded. “Where is he?”

“We don’t want to bring him in here!”

“Yes I do! Where is my husband goddamn it! Where’s my muffin?”

Amidst the pain that lasted an eternity, Orion’s deep voice spoke to Bri, guiding her through it. The mid-wife did little but irritate her in her already sweating, writhing state. The blankets were soaked in her fluids and the stench of blood hung in the air.

A small panic budded in her heart and began to open wider.

Delirium set to its work in making the woman a fool. At forty-four, would she survive from this gift she had tried to give? Would the gift survive?

She felt her husband’s hand in her own, never moving or pulling from her sharp grip. Her nails dug into his flesh. She loosened the hold and she could hear him shift beside her, a hand on her head.

“Darling? Are you alright?”

“Is it over?”

“Yes. You don’t remember? We have a little girl.”

“Where are they taking it to, Orion?”

“Nowhere. She is in the room. They are cleaning her.”

“If I give her…” she spoke these words without knowing their meaning “If I give her to strangers how do I know they will love her?”

“What? Brigid, what are you talking about?” Orion asked.

“Her chances are better with someone else than with me…” she slurred.

“Brigid…”

“My lord,” the nursemaid’s voice arrived. “She’s delirious. Let us leave her to sleep.”

Bri was half aware that what she spoke made no sense. But the other half was lying on the bed of some cargo ship, surrounded by sailors and a few dark-skinned women. The smell of her own sweat and blood overwhelmed her. She buried her face into the pillow and passed off into another nightmare.

The dark-skinned women had helped her to birth that child. When they showed her the infant girl she believed its crying was grief. Grief in its first moments. She grieved being dropped into this world. The Indians could not make Bri nurse the baby for she feared it. She was only a girl of fourteen and this infant knew it. It resented her for this. It always would…