in my mother’s closet

but death is everywhere, death

is on everyone, here. 

you look at the pieces of places,

putting strange-years together during a

stilted summer home in connecticut

that stole your breath again.

these people are kin, and yet

they steal breath, then.

in the land of nod, firr-whiz, 

 death is everywhere, death

is on everyone, here. 

in the closet 

was a dress

i wore to the retreat, red-black and 

knit. i wore it hot and roaring.

i find pieces from my wardrobe

 in my mother’s

closet, ones i thought long

disappeared. and i find bracelets of hers

in my backpack-purse. she’s forgotten my name by now.

i wonder if i can ever feel the depths of this

grief. 

magpie, or gatherer-of things not-hers,

walker-betweens but still marionettes.

there are a few redeeming things about

going back, mostly the woods. 

still, there is god, and its name

is change

i find little

pock-pieces of my mother and some of

my life too

in my mother’s closet

but death is everywhere, death

Is on everyone, here. 

i wonder if they wonder about

 why i am so disengaged. as my mother

dies, and my father continues his lies

i can’t tell them anything true, they shatter and shudder like

cows under a rainy moon.

i wonder if they wonder

i can’t tell them anything true, they shatter and shudder like

cows under a rainy moon.