SUZZALLO SNOW

by Susan Dunn
August 2000

Coming down off a 6-week binge,

Only because I was in town,

He pulled himself together long enough to take me here,

Greeting me with a limp,

his face pasty white,

his arm covered with bruises,

lying about the causes,

and when he didn’t think I was looking

I could see the haunted look was back in his eyes.

The demons were winning this round

Tearing at a soul that carried blossoms in cupped hands.

We had been here before.

He prepared me in no way for the surprises of the day –

They were gifts for me – and gifts must be surprises!

He simply led me forth,

With that petite-secret twinkle in his eye,

“Ve shall partake of ze wonders of ze universe, no? Yes? No?

Ve go!”

We arrived, and he waved his magic wand

Laying it all out before me

“It’s snow, Mom!” he said.

There were white blossoms a foot deep covering the ground

In front of the magnificent Suzzallo library

And he kicked them up with his feet

And caught a handful and tossed them over my head

And I wore them in my hair that day

Finding them at once more flattering than snow

And more enduring.

The library was all Gothic and awesome,

An architectural showpiece,

And I wondered how he could find –

In the unceasingly gloomy suicide capital of the universe

(His demons summoned him to places like this)

Where the women have no hairstyles or makeup

And only love other women

(How is a man to survive the cold?) –

A Fairyland . Only he.

[And you want me to rage at this leprechaun bearing gifts

Who, with the god-damned luck of the Irish has the faulty

D2 dopamine receptor gene, through no fault of his own?

He even walks the way his dad does when he’s drunk.]

And then we walk outside again and he is suddenly seated on the grass

A very soft grass, maybe a gentle fescue,

And says he wants to enjoy the sunlight a moment

A rarity in Seattle,

And just as suddenly he is asleep,

Exhausted from the studies and the drugs,

And the demons that claw at him night and day

And won’t give him a moment’s peace;

Asleep, with the same little drop of saliva at the corner of his mouth

His hand still cupped beneath his chin, his fingers curled,

As when he was 6 years old, and I could keep him safe.

And, among all the things I cannot do,

To save him from himself,

He allows me to be the one who brings him enough peace

To fall asleep, finally, on a soft bed of green,

The dappled sunlight playing upon his hair,

At the foot of a magnificent Gothic cathedral

In a field of white blossoms.

A stillness falls,

And the gargoyle at the uppermost top of the Suzzulo library

Looks down from his position of omniscient impotence

And sees a sparrow fall.

Suddenly he shivers

And from his deep sleep he calls my name,

“I’m cold, Mommy. I’m cold.”

I reach out and pull a blanket of stars across him

With my trembling fingers,

For the sun is fading and the night is coming

And he will need them when he can no longer see the light of day,

And I know he hasn’t much time left

For the gargoyle doesn’t care.