Makeup smeared, like a clown, like the Joker
Lipstick askew, eyeliner lying on her cheeks
Like she forgot how to put it on
(She’d never forget that)
I dream about Mom for the third night in a row
Everyone is humoring her, pretending she’s alive
She won’t stop talking about something from last week
As if she was there. She wasn’t. (Was she?)
“That was the worst hamburger I ever ate for breakfast,”
Mom said. Five of us leave the dusty diner
(She’d never eat a hamburger for breakfast)
I start to argue
Dad pulls my arm, shoots me that look that says,
“That’s enough.”
And then we are all walking to church. The wrong church.
I know it’s wrong because there’s standing, clapping
I yell “No!” turn, run away
To where I can kneel, where it’s quiet
Where there are no zombies
Only statues perfectly made up
