“The Last Day” by Andrew McLellan

The Last Day

Three generations,
each the point of a triangle
linked in a game of catch.

Even at eleven, I know
the finality of this pure geometry.
I struggle to find the right arc, tender
in my throws to you, afraid
if you miss, I will break your frail body —
shatter the pacemaker 

that protrudes from your chest —
my father sternly eyeing me
to increase the arc.
When I throw to him,
the line is flat and unforgiving. 

By the lake below us,
grackles bark sharply
while stripping blueberries.
The lake is brimming, ready
to flood the adjacent bogs
and turn them crimson, beckoning
the wading reapers to scribe and corral
the cranberries with their absurdly long scythes. 

Inside, the women laugh
at the lobsters let loose on the linoleum.
No culls for this occasion. They crawl
beneath the pot as it labors to a boil. 

*

The next day they
will take half,  

half of your lungs.
Your wake was censored from the young,
your face deemed too bloated — 

you didn’t look like you
anymore,
it was said.
Had you lingered too long,
I was told they would have taken
your bluing fingers and toes, too. 

When she sang of an eye on the sparrow,
the lid of your coffin dissolved
and I saw your swollen face —
saw me pressing my cheek against yours,
ruining your funerary makeup.  

*

The delicate blue porcelain box
that caught your eye
through some wartime shop window,
never moved from atop your bureau.
As a boy, I crept into your room
carefully lifting the lid — its white underbelly 

sepia-stained like the Shroud
of Turin — some faded Christ-like countenance
staring at me as light from the lake spasmed
across the white bedspread.
The box never contained anything.  

Now, when I remove the lid,
it unleashes a scraping sound
parroting those shrieking birds,  

those birds on that day so sleek and iridescent
as they departed over the lake
after taking everything.

Andrew Mclellan

Andrew McLellan was born in Brockton, Massachusetts. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Queens University of Charlotte. Andrew double-majored in Architecture and English Literature at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He was a visiting professor at both the University of Tennessee and UNC Charlotte, where he taught architectural studio and history / theory seminars. His writing and collages have been featured in books and publications, including Collage and Architecture (Routledge, 2014), Confabulations: Storytelling in Architecture (Ashgate, 2015), and the Journal of Architectural Education (70:1, March 2016). Andrew lives in Charlotte with his wife and two children.

Headshot: Courtney McLellan

Photo Credit: Staff