Showing posts with label Dolores. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dolores. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 1, 2016

Wish Lists for the Dead

You know there's these online wish-lists
for people about to get married.
Toaster (1). Champagne glasses (12).
That sort of thing. A lot of pre-newlyweds
just want cash. Why did I just write "just"?

Anyway, I think there should be wish-lists
for people who've just died. Some things
with far more granularity than a will
or a trust or a box of photos. Bouquet
for Giselle (1). Fuck-you to cousin
Rexx (3). Trees planted (1,345,238).
Bourbon-and-branch-water for
Dolores (3). Kind word (1).


hans ostrom 2016

Friday, December 14, 2012

Message From Dolores



Someone named Dolores
called for you today. 
She lives in the 1940s,
asks that you visit her there.
Seems she has details
of history to share—wool
skirts, unfiltered cigarettes,
a porter on a Pullman car
who saw too much, a neighbor
who never came back
from Tule Lake.  She wants
to play records for you—
78 RPM, thick as UFOs.
She wants you to understand
what it was like for her, what
she had, chose, and refused
to do. She understands how
busy you are.  Still she’d
like to see you.  Open
one of those boxes in storage,
find a photo of or words from
Dolores.  Walk through the
page.  Dolores will be waiting,
holding a Chesterfield just so,
ready to tell you about women
and men back then.  Don’t
worry.  She can’t come back
but you can.  You have a pass
that lets you go between now
and then.  The price of the pass
is just to think about the past.
That’s all.  That’s really all
there is to it.  Ask Dolores.


--Hans Ostrom, copyright 2012