Colette Parris
Ode to John Michael Higgins
If anyone ever asks me
how I survived this relentless black
for even a moment
I will sayit was because of you.
I will explain that I spent
consecutive hours
over consecutive days
watching you as if
the world was not in fact
disintegrating;
you with your dapper suits
and perfect hair and pilot voice,
revealing what America says
about butterflies/red/
Beyonce/Clint Eastwood/
swamps/Vermont/
the best sundae toppings,
gently mocking the contestants’
screwball guesses
gamely accepting their questionable
gifts of hats and comestibles
precisely mimicking their
ludicrous dances
always thanking the educators
and first responders
and general do-gooders
with sincerity.
A millennium from now–long after
we are fully ruined–I want
the excavators to find
your likeness in the rubble,
to reconstruct (through a device
not known in our lifetimes)
your soothing pep talks
for the underdogs.
I want them to understand
that there were pinpricks of light,
even then.
If anyone ever asks me
how I survived this relentless black
for even a moment
I will sayit was because of you.
I will explain that I spent
consecutive hours
over consecutive days
watching you as if
the world was not in fact
disintegrating;
you with your dapper suits
and perfect hair and pilot voice,
revealing what America says
about butterflies/red/
Beyonce/Clint Eastwood/
swamps/Vermont/
the best sundae toppings,
gently mocking the contestants’
screwball guesses
gamely accepting their questionable
gifts of hats and comestibles
precisely mimicking their
ludicrous dances
always thanking the educators
and first responders
and general do-gooders
with sincerity.
A millennium from now–long after
we are fully ruined–I want
the excavators to find
your likeness in the rubble,
to reconstruct (through a device
not known in our lifetimes)
your soothing pep talks
for the underdogs.
I want them to understand
that there were pinpricks of light,
even then.
Colette Parris is a Caribbean-American attorney who recently returned to her literary roots after a long hiatus. Her work can be found/is forthcoming in Lunch Ticket, Thin Air Magazine, and Burningword Literary Journal. She lives in Westchester County, New York with her husband and daughter.