Bob Bradshaw
is a programmer living in Redwood City, CA. He is a big fan of the Rolling Stones, and is planning his retirment party around the Stones' availability. Of course he can't afford to retire. So this is an academic issue.
Recent and forthcoming work of his can be found at Eclectica, SN Review, Hiss Quarterly, Slow Trains, and Apple Valley Review.
—Back to Work Poetry Contents—
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A Beautician Working Afternoons At A Funeral Parlor
After an afternoon of giggly girls
squirming under hair dryers
I make my call to Mrs. Rubens.
I paint her eyelids an iris blue,
and comb her hair till there isn’t a strand
out of place.
I smooth creams over the slopes
of her face. I manicure her nails,
polishing them with a lovely pink.
Her daughter wants her mother to look
the way she did at her wedding
thirty years ago. I hold
a photo up. Her daughter looks on
as I dust her cheeks
with a blush
of youth.
Mom, you’re beautiful,
she says. I’m touched by the silkiness
of her voice. She could have been my child
perhaps.
She holds her mother’s face in her hands
tenderly, as if cupping
a flame. When she leaves I spackle
Mrs. Rubens’ lips.
Tomorrow they’ll all say
she never looked better.
If you ask me though there was always
a coldness about her.
This is the woman who thirty years ago slipped
the engagement ring from my fiancé’s finger.
Now I slip her ring off
with anti-bacterial
soap.
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