By: Peter Coe Verbica
On his deathbed
he finally gave up
the combination
to the safe.
But lean and laser-eyed,
she still can’t
drop that heavy anvil
Or canvas bag of horseshoes,
taken from
the hocks and hooves of fate.
What’s left
of the razorbacks
still chew at hog wire
crisscross the rectangled gate.
In the bellows,
I hear the hand-cranked whining
as bits of charcoal start to bake.
Years ago,
she burned down
the roadside restaurant,
Left a kettle alone
on the stove,
all the while huggin’ Kate
in the quiet whispers
of a Eucalyptus grove.
That conflagration
stopped her worries
of showing up shaky
or closing late.
One day a torrent of rain
will wash the sugar
from both the thistle
and the grain.
But for now —
Adios to the oil
and curls of sawdust on the floor.
‘Bye to the heartwood
on the beams, on the ceiling
and sliced upon the door.
They say touching
the wounds of Christ,
ain’t the same
as straight-laced believin’.
That no matter the hunger
gnawing at your stomach,
leave behind your lyin’ and deceivin’.
His emphysema
no longer interrupts
her chasing dreams through picture windows.
The days are warmed
by whiskey, a broken book,
and buzzards unwinding in the sky.
Above the uneven lawn,
the sounds of crows’ gravelly screaming,
as if someone is killing them
to put them in a pie.
Whether he went
to hell or not
with those pruney feet,
heaven only knows.
The days are peaceful now,
not havin’ to hear him hack,
or blow the bugle of his nose.
Some say he wrote
a jumble of genius and
slow roasted it on a spit,
held the callow faces
of life in the hollow
of his mitt.
She holds her mud,
and won’t say
whether he can’t
or if he could.
But, at the funeral
the fat pastor winged it.
He winged it pretty good –
about the ol’ boy being a pauper,
and a painter,
and being misunderstood.
His art’s getting moldy,
the plein airs lean
on each other in the shed.
But, that’s the rhyme
and reason of life,
she thought.
Like a rust or worry,
it eats on even
the best works of the dead.
On his last day,
he coughed up
the combination
to the safe.
Even with a sharp knife,
she still had trouble
as she cut through Sunday’s steak.
Like life,
it sure had gotten tougher
on Tuesday morning’s plate.
Peter Coe Verbica, grew up on Rancho San Felipe, a cattle ranch in Northern California. He earned his BA in English from Santa Clara University, a JD from Santa Clara University School of Law and an MS from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
"Tuesday Morning's Plate was inspired by Tom Waits' brilliant 'Murder in the Red Barn.' As someone who witnessed both the mercy and pitilessness of ranch life, 'Tuesday Morning's Plate' brings to mind some of the fog and thistle in the early morning hayfields I walked as a boy.