They always wear perfect versions
of their younger selves.
My grandparents call out, oh, here she is at last.
The table is set for a banquet — this is not a wake.
Dad is by the hearth, encouraging ash back to life.
I’ve never lived in a house that held its heat
I tell him, unable to say I miss you
in case he recollects his death.
He’s distracted, can you hear that?
he asks. Somewhere in the house
a child is crying. Find her, ’he says.
Take her with you when it’s time.
When the door opens, he looks expectant.
I see a shadow of the presence that’s followed me here,
that follows me everywhere. Somewhere a requiem plays
and everyone in the room plays dead.
I will not look.
~
The sea is the colour of the sea
I choose — aquamarine and teal.
My boat runs in on a flood tide,
is beached at the prairie’s edge,
the closest I’ll get to home.
Here grasslands smell of ochre
and ash, of scorched heartlands.
The sun sweats yellow in a blue, blue sky.
I make my way to the house —
a prank house cobbled together
with every house I’ve ever called home.
The door is an ancient wood,
each tree a memory, each leaf a hook.
The walls are lined with conch-shells,
through which the wind blows
my lonely childhood song.
In the hall I hear crying —
so close, it could be coming from me.
I climb the stairs, stop outside the Room of Rain.
Rust flowers the lock. I hear rain falling inside
but I won’t go in; this is where the light died —
hung from a bouquet of stars.