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