A VISITATION
There will be a fire. Our books will burn,
our walls will press their temples back against
the barrel of the world. Volumes we
didn’t know we owned will be ground into
the wet woodgrain’s rough edges in the shape
of a black horse, brass-plated balances
uncovered at an unimpressive yard
sale, catalogues of seals and stars, of names
saved up, sloughed off and fallen out of use.
BEETS
Come in the kitchen and we’ll make you something, sharpen our knives, fix you something to eat, sever the stems on the tops of the beets, tidy the house when there’s company coming, plump up the pillows, smooth down the sheets, print the floors with the clean wet of our feet, the sauce on the stovetop boiled down to nothing, potatoskins turned to mud at our feet, pink caked in our nails from the flesh of the beets.
FOR HANK, ON HIS DEPARTURE
Everything is just as you left it.
Your sister misses you. She’s still eating your food. There’s sunshine on the bed. Last night your nemesis the possum walked by your window ledge. We’ll keep an eye out for him.
The days go by without much incident, much as you’d like them. No one sleeps on my feet or licks my plate at breakfast. Your toy mice are still lost behind the couch under a thin dust of your fur. I’ll leave them there.
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