The Rapture
Cooley, Peter
The Rapture Beyond the window he stares out, oblivious I've come back, my father is entering the afterworld. I am still here, working Dad's "senior residence," occasional nurse, valet, waiter,...
...I am still here, working Dad's "senior residence," occasional nurse, valet, waiter, and errand boy, a pint of cherry ice cream leaking a slow drip in my hand...
...Soon in their backward amble they will enter the gates, swung open for them, and begin to shed their clothes, flinging everything skyward as their new bodies come together...
...This is before my sister and her madness, the war, before I appear, then relatives demanding bed and board for years...
...it mists her wedding veil Snow is all they know, and darkness for the blizzards to fall across these decades they walk away from now...
...Out there, they are together in a first snow, my father and mother, she nine months dead, two tiny figures walking backward to Paradise...
...PETER COOLEY...
...Snow dots his top hat...
Vol. 130 • December 2003 • No. 22
