The Nana Hex

Every time I get happy the Nana-Hex comes through. A dog's canines change into chainsaws, toothpicks turn into knives, coral reefs diverge into dirty sponges, a sandcastle into a mausoleum, a soldier-ant burrows deeper into my borrowed grave, reveille trumpets tap a tip-toed timpani of disenchanted malevolence; all for the Nana-Song. I am eleven. I am naked. I am screaming. I am kneeling in the shower and every time I shriek: "I feel like dancing today or look, I can tie my shoelaces or my bruises have healed or, my neck is not scarlet like the underskin of Grandma's fingernails" - it plays again, it reprises - like a Bizet refrain scraping pitchforks against agate slabs, shaving fresh flesh. All for the resurrection of...! All for the redemption of...! the Nana-Hex. Now, I am fifteen. I don't talk. I fail to eat. I scratch poetry and snivel. My front teeth are chipped and broken like the high-browed brim of Nana's low-ball snifter. I picture four undertakers from my windowsill. Three of them are for me - the fourth filthy fist, clutching a scratched chromed rung, is for her. Throwing confetti from a guarded train as she selfishly vacated me, Dr. Zhivago evasive and...wait! "look I've made my bed, dear Nana. I lost another tooth, I received an A+ in geometry. No. I'm not part of one's family circus, I'm not a crippled duckling in a shooting gallery anymore." Mom, Momma - I... I can't catch her confetti, Mother. I can't, poor Momma - but... when her swastikad locomotive bleeds into the frozen chambers of Auschwitz's omnipresent shower heads, and my stifled tears choke your starved larynx like a rabid cat untangling balls of matted string; then... and only then - dear God, please tell Grandma Nana - I've formidably said: hello.