“Magical Mystery Tour”
By Sean Farragher

Unlike the Beatles the air didn’t rise with Coleridge
to great domes in the sky. Motion’s peculiar turn bonds
with sex and the presence of laughter scratched 78 rpm
back ground to circus -- almost a dirge when I rolled fingerprints off
the old pot stove. It was Beaufort, NC. I was two. My mother sucked
my fingers. I remember the ice cream, and at some shadow date
in Futureland I burned my fingertips again; I grew magical scars.
Lightning bugs at rainbows end decorated her black wedding dress.

I loved those swirls and ovals of Dick Tracy fingerprints
that lined garbage cans. Through a magnifying glass
I taught myself to read war maps, and at six I inked
fingers with red and printed the white walls of our happiness.

In 1945, Father came home with a howl. He screamed
a red lighting. He beat my mother until her mouth
drooled blood and her pee ran down her legs; afraid
to move, to stand up, or to stop the welts of his belt
on my legs when I refused sleep at his command.

My red fingerprints did all of that. I made the stains.
“I was Eddie Wyman he’s no good. Chop him up for fire wood.”

Two months later father would “set sail on goodly ship.”
Mother and I healed. I slept when I was tired. I didn’t
stand guard in vestibule with small wooden toy swords.






I flexed my jaw. Every birthday I measured the distance
and force of my pee. Soon it would put out fires.

The last day of the last hour of his leave Father beat my mother
and shook me like a tree dying. In 1948, my mother pregnant with
my sister had lost one child. She feared another, and soft with blue
ribbon bruises she told me “it was miracle; my sister was born”
with a noose around her neck; the cruel umbilicus had missed.
I wondered what I had done. Every night, Mother turned down the bed
and patted my bottom and felt for the space between my legs so I
would smile and she fell forward, her breasts dropping out
of her nightgown. I remember how my teddy bear fell too
as she brushed against it with my sister inside her belly.

Morning found its sun rise nodding. I assembled jig saw puzzle,
pick- up-sticks; I build metallic cities with long moats to defend
against U boats that rode the sloppy Hudson floods. I lifted storms
through the Narrows past Saint Statue and Uncle Ellis when
war was a simpler placemat Generals spread across kitchen tables.

Mother loved “War of the Worlds”. Every zero another conquest
while the Lords of money stole the store. “I am not a socialist”,
she admonished. We played Monopoly to lose as she sat bare body
unfasten, rocked at the knees; her legs opened the scissor

I loved how her red lipstick stained the end of her camels.
Mother always sat close. What do I win if I lose? Intoxicated,
her hand held my thigh and her kiss with each roll of the dice
I tasted the unmistakable rest she promised if America would win.





2.
We always win. America wins. Ice Cream melts on
the ridges of my hands. Not every finger is sweet.

Mother promised that history was a sexy ride through
Gaul with the Legions of Rome. We read the books,
dictionaries and encyclopedia. All slaves were bred
became soldiers, sailors, and comfort women.

How is war between nations a more reasonable violence?
Perhaps I extend the metaphor too close to my own skin.
My extreme abuse seems odd when compared to the simple
puzzles of the cold war. The end of the world is near.
I laugh at the usual prophecy.



xxx