Entanglement
Using the tiny fingers of a seven-year-old,
Anabella removes dust in the form of her name
across the top
of her mother's old jewelry box
a signature.
She often played dress-up,
in her mother's walk-in closet.
Imagining it was her very own castle
with strong walls, no intrusion
because her father was nowhere to be found.
Unbeknownst to her,
He was probably locked in his office,
A bourbon and old photo album
labeled “Julie”
in his own boyish scraggle.
It was picture day tomorrow;
She just needed one necklace
but even more,
a parent.
He was dreaming that she'd once again
walk through the door.
She was waiting for Mommy.
It was a night of make-believe for two.
Disentanglement
Trinkets lay all over the glossed oak-wood floor.
Ana was sitting at the center of the mess,
her upper body leaned over
a tangled knot of sterling silver chains.
In the corner were costume rings
that seemed to have been playfully arranged
in some kind of inscrutable
seven-year-old pattern
that emanated begging
for two broken hearts
mourning apart
to find solace
in their two halves being one again.
She was tugging at the spidery legs
the glittering clump of the spider's body,
full of clasps, jewels and hoops,
jolting this way and that.
He lightly pushed the door open
and emerged from the darkness
of where he had been standing in the doorway.
He approached her,
and squatted near the edges of the necklace pond.
Placing his hand gently on her shoulder, he said,
“Baby?”
She looked up with the bright green eyes of his wife.
“Like this,” he said, as he followed one cord
and was slowly able to untangle it.
There was still much more to be disentangled,
But one of those clots was now freed.