Every Other Day

This chipped paint, the missing trim

The faint, black fingerprints left in the ceiling

Where you hung the wrong light

This is my song

The mother that did not love me right

Seeing too much of her own mother reflected in my eyes

Fathers that had already

Given up the fight, too spent

To match the drawers of socks thrown

Across a threadbare comforter

(I forget, from searching for his eyes)

Peals of laughter thrown across

The dust of thinning cloth

Gasps melting beneath

Shattered breath

When I got up in the night to imagine you

Leaving with a birdcage, as I clamped onto your leg

The foil had already done its work

The bird, already choked dead

And I was singing horror stories my stepsisters

Told me over breakfast

Our minds are made up in the moments

When no one is looking

In the quiet hallways where we count

The beats of silence

Staring at empty door frames full of

Expectant light and

Measuring out the notes

Of our own quiet ghosts

In the hall

 

Reviews

[jacob erin-cilberto]

this is absolutely phenomenal...

i see the cycle here...often we marry people who are like our parents...males marrying personalities like their mothers...females marrying those like their fathers...and there is a trend that carries on...and then there are only ghosts of relationships left...

and we are left talking about our childhoods, our adulthoods...those we loved and who loved us...and how it all seems the same.

j.

[Kristina Moulaison]

Thanks so much, Jacob! Very nice assessment!

[Creepy Swine Guy]

That last stanza stands out to me ... I know that hall!

[Kristina Moulaison]

Yes, indeed. Thanks!

[Dr. Wood ?]

simply brilliant...sort of makes me want to pick up a pen and WRITE a serious poem myself. Or I could just read this on over. If I was any good at serious poetry then THIS is how I would want it to be

[Kristina Moulaison]

Wow, thanks! I appreciate your very kind words!