"Call Your Mom" (National Poetry Month poem-a-day) Day 8

“Call Your Mom”

Criminal Episode 4

written by Bruce A. Pandolfo

4/8/2017

Among the idle chatter the officers had to stifle laughter

despite the graphic aftermath at the crime scene

when Casey said “I'll try to reach my Mom”

at 3 O'clock, she's on the homicide team.

Alright see,

this isn't your ordinary morbid fairy tale

a story carrying a portrait pairing well

with an altered rearing skill

absorbing love in a horrid scary world

where the corpses can be held

among hair-raising awful hellishness

then when the day is done with just

act normal, head home hug infants

cuddle and kiss your husband

tiptoeing a befuddling

balance of the love of your bloodline

and comfortably shrugging off puddling

lines of blood that your day is covered in sometimes.

Etched in a family tree, name signed in mortal coil cursive

twisting like a double helix, genes twist tales from toiling Vernons

Bill and Linda spend a lifetime near life lines scythes serviced

viewing both sides of coins for Charron so encouraged Kathy learned it!

Go for it little K.C.! Go figure, forged at only four

Front row seat to see beetles eat a ghastly course of gopher corpse

formed a newfound fascination! Neither tragedy nor comedy

accommodating the macabre intrigue of killed cats like curiosity

morbid curiosity? Whats morbid about curiosity?

Oh! curious about morbidity. But there's beauty in mortality

The Vernons took their work home, family dinner chatting,

not glorifying gore, decidedly adapted like the Adams,

Cordial conversation isn't as most families would have it,

Horrible? they're defining exactly what bad could happen,

“Don't you protect your daughter from the horrors?” some would ask her,

She thought: "if kids were smart enough for questions I should answer."

Knowledge got imparted, Important talks are the hardest,

The Vernons weren't callous, a lot of scars were carved in,

the world is full of darkness, trap your traumas in compartments

lodge them deep down locked in boxes

cautiously acknowledge the macabre but not too often

Casey went from note-taking science projects observing carcasses

To a rare mid-20s professional career in the Coroner's offices

Learned a lot about the ending the reaper brings as family bonded

Now K.C.'s learning of beginnings bringing life in as a Mom

Her husband's a coroner too, excited for life they both expect,

One wonders if their child too, will court a life immersed in death.