Relatively Speaking

Or how Pa Nobdy stopped worrying & learnt to luv himself for a leaver.

When I asked my pater
Many years later
Why he walked out on my mother–
His answer was palaver
But one part that did malinger
Wuz about the relativity of Time.

See he claims to have been sad
So sad in fact
He contemplated sui-sad,
Burning hot lead
The explosive consumption thereof.

Yet at the very last instant
Just before the trigger hammer
He had a revelation
Concerning Time & its relation
To every living creature
In their turn.

“See, son,” Dad said,
“Every span is spent different:
“Some brine shrimp
“Walk on four legs in the morning
“Two legs in the afternoon
“& three in the evening–
“All over the course of
“A single dang day.”

Meaning what?
I wondered.

“Meaning,” Pa persisted,
“Who are we to say
“How long some thing should last?
“Yr mum & I were lovers
“Made yr body & yr brother’s
“But that luv wuz only born to last
“For five years as its lifetime
“Till the Seven Ages ended
“So those days were dead & buried.”

In my mind I see him
Standing over a deer whose chest
He has just pierced
With a high powered rifle,
Pondering his theory
As he hauls the thing for skinning
& the gutting & the cutting
How that hart’s thread
Had only been so long
Then the Sisters with the scissors
Snipped it clean.

Whatever gets you thru
Yr own brief moment
I suppose–
Tho no offense to Father
But his Brine Shrimp Defense
Sounds to me
A little bit like bullshit.