20
Two poems by charlie brice
Antiques
For Art H.
Mother ran through our house
with a hammer, wide-eyed, wild,
attacked our front door as if it was
a wooden rapist. Medusa hair,
snake pit in motion, she slammed
the hammer down, over and over,
“antiquing” our open door. Art and I felt
the chill. Cheyenne hit 20 below
that day cancelling school, warming
our 16 year old hearts. The radio warned
that exposed skin would freeze in five
minutes so Art threw on a jacket and
walked the mile to our house, happy
to beat the odds, as he beat me
at endless games of chess and gin
rummy that day. Ma finally finished
off the door and brought her madness
down upon an innocent chest in our garage.
Art and I hadn’t known that an antique
was a piece of furniture pounded
into submission then spray painted
with a godawful smelling copper
goo. We thought it was something
old, like we are now. Me a bald,
fat, greybeard in Pittsburgh; Art in
Florida, pummeled by Parkinson’s
Disease, still able to clobber my ass
at chess and gin rummy.