Final Cord
by: Joy Reid

My father threatens to jump down the stairs
he says they are dirty,
he can't come down.
He stands with hands held away surgeon-like.
Hands like bacon
scrubbed red raw.

My mother pleads with despairing hands.
She falls to her knees
scrubs with her apron.
But father grows frantic in Indian dance.
His feet shuffle panic,
his mind is ablaze.

As their voices crescendo in maelstrom of madness,
I take myself away.

When I return the stairs have been concealed,
a yellowing sheet
collapses downwards.
The offending shoes have disappeared.
Those shoes
which have surfed the oily slicks of castaway cartons,
those shoes
which have surged through spat gum, cigarette waste
those shoes
which should not have been placed upon the carpeted stairs where their
contaminants could creeper to the corners of father's mind -
have gone.

Father stalls in the doorway.
His wrists are crossed
as if a thin but final cord
bound the two together.