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Sign After Sign
GRAFTON'S LIVERY Deep inside the body of history, the wind blows and Grafton's livery grips itself in anticipation of the next convulsive gust. Commonplace as his stable, Tom Grafton is a leather apron draped over wattle and daub clothing. He is blonde disheveled hair...a roof of thatched reeds. On eleventh century Coventry's most interesting spring morning, when trees decide once again that they need leaves, Lady Godiva's husband, Leofric, who has even stooped to levy taxes on manure, presses pale green shillings into a willing palm and Tom prepares three horses... two to bear accoutered aides riding on each side and slightly to the rear of their nude Lady. Her jaunty steed is secretly outfitted, the words liberator and debonair hastily cut into the bridle's silver and shamelessness stenciled along the reins. He claims not to have peeped as he boosted her to the saddle -- one hand over his eyes, but instinctively a small gap widened between fingers. He later blamed a sort of Venus/Cleopatra sorcery; and wrote: " Her body was so beautiful that when she died, her mortal soul refused to leave. She was a spoonful of caviar raised to the lips of a king, which, considering the cost, it would be a sin not to enjoy." Copyright (c) Thomas Emmett Mueller Excerpted From SIGN AFTER SIGN Published By PoetWorks Press, LLC
DISCONNECTED CHROMOSOMES Just after their daughter's third birthday a husband and wife decide to balance the family with the addition of a son. The mother is forty-two and somewhat apprehensive. They consider adoption, but the fetus grows to term and arrives as a boy with East Asian-like eyes, thick hands, small low-set ears, and a concave saddle-shaped nose. Their two children are supposed to be opposites: the girl fair, like daylight... the boy different, negative. Today, the family walks to Main Street for a parade. Mom holds her daughter's perfect hand and dad carries the son on his shoulders so he can't see him. The boy stares straight ahead into the world his father sees; learning to absorb its emptiness. Copyright (c) Thomas Emmett Mueller Excerpted From SIGN AFTER SIGN Published By PoetWorks Press, LLC
