By Toklas
Date: 18 March 2001
Beryl's Wallpaper
Beryl's Wallpaper
When Oscar died, green carnations
wilted on oily walls; a mangled web,
long abandoned, straggled from hard
unshaded light. Oscar lay there,
a definition in details: a mask dressed
on a withered stage.
When Grandpa died, he too
was shrouded in ancient gloss:
vine and heliotrope, conspiracy
of decoration, hung just after
the third baby came and died.
Some ninety years before, he wept
for children lost to cold, while Beryl,
just lifted from the film of birth, stripped
the walls, rolled out papers and mixed
a vat of glue. Oscar rolled out his death
in cheap hotels, begged absinthe
in exchange for quips. In this haste of grief
and death, she hung new paper; the purpled bloom
askew, fell astray on leaf and vine - she knew
nor cared that Oscar died that selfsame day.
After wars and nine children more,
(but four survived) Beryl wept.
When Grandpa died, she kerchiefed
wiry hair; the weight of plumb line
straightens out the world.
This time she laid the edges
matched to rights, lay down and died
among a flight of birds: nested eyes
in jonquil and thistle twined.
We peel the layers in arrays of photo books;
slim children lined up and polished
to a kettle sheen, a postcard he sent from overseas
of Oscar's tomb - her only view of Paris sights.
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