When Father decided he didn’t love her anymore
Mother started drinking.
In the low wattage loneliness
that spilled from the floor lamp
she’d swirl the scotch just to the lip of the glass
so that for a moment it seemed it might spill.
She took only small sips,
Laboring all night at serenity,
Her long, stockinged legs stretched
across the ottoman, she reclined in his chair
reading her way through his library
as the room filled with the sturdy drone
of our old furnace beating back
winter’s insistent infiltration.
Already I have said too much
the past surges then shrinks
when you try to define it.
I must learn to forgive my father
for leaving those books behind,
and my mother for the years she spent
snapping their spines.
Photo Source: RabiKnows
