In the Shadow of the Ruined Family

We for whom pageantry is a valid psychological approach to living in the world. Hand-sewn scarves, potted marigolds, tea pots made in Greece and mailed to the states. What is a memory again?

What happens on Tucker Road stays on Tucker Road and yet, it goes with me everywhere, is the starlight gleaming in every thin smile I can't stop smiling. 

In the far field, four deer graze. Do you recall when you forgot her and realized for the first time what it meant to be free? This is the Holy Spirit on drugs. Black socks, sky blue eye shadow, a gold bracelet and two tattoos of swans.

Distance has a name now. We will be left with Greek flowers growing in the shadow of the ruined family house. Octopuses dreaming of moonlight on white marble.

It took the Titanic two and a half hours to sink, basically the length of a good story, which it was. Sifting through a box of postcards in the antique store in Vermont.

We are dust floating across the attic floor in early fall. Books read to a point where they're mostly ruined. 

Evidence of what crime. 

Early afternoon we walk to the park to talk, end up not saying much, just listening to the river behind us, turkey vultures loping through low-hanging clouds. 

To what Kenya are you called now and who will you take with you. 

How shall we judge the quality of the apology? Hands dusted with flour, listening to NPR, a light rain falling, everything always a thousand miles away.