THE DEAD MINGLE WITH THE LIVING

by John Tustin

In my dreams each night,

the dead mingle with the living

and I stand among them,

feeling like both and neither.

The smell of smoke comes in;

a fire burning

of rubber and rotten wood:

the dead mingle with the living.

In my dreams each night,

I sit within my grandmother’s kitchen

with my brother

who transforms into my son.

Then I am in my childhood home,

ugly green carpet all over

but my ex-wife owns it somehow

and my daughter won’t come downstairs

and there are cats that lived there

but they are all missing

and my ex-wife denies they existed at all

and that door leads nowhere,

nowhere but down down down.

I open it anyway

and I descend,

finding no happiness nor cats.

My mother is in the kitchen,

still dead but now alive

and I hear the water running,

she’s washing the dishes

but when I put down the newspaper

and walk into the kitchen,

she’s not there anymore

and the dead don’t mingle anymore

because I’m waking up.

I’m waking up

and I smell a fire burning

of rubber mixed with fresh wood.

John Tustin’s poetry has appeared in many disparate literary journals since 2009. His first poetry collection from Cajun Mutt Press is now available at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C6W2YZDP