I think I know
what’s happening,
after the fact.

The house is more or less closed up.

The TV room,
to the kitchen,
down the hallway,
the bathroom,
the bedroom.

Do it again and again,
world without end,
amen.

He keeps it hot.
His bones hurt
like the unused rooms
with their doors
shut.

The newspapers,
junk-mail on
the kitchen table.

We clear space
for coffee cups,
conversations.

It’s small,
but it’s a horde
nonetheless.

The result of boredom,
the fact that it’s not really
hurting anyone,
nobody complains.

Angela straightens things
up when we come over for a meal
now and then.

(She does the cooking.)

He’s lonely.
He wants to talk to someone.
Who?

No one really talks
his brand of talk
these days.

He’s still working on the book
that he started writing
when I was 16-years-old.

He leaves us alone
on the weekends, mostly.

We do our thing,
he does his.

During the week,
we feed him dinner
most nights.

It’s a good arrangement.
We talk a lot as Angie
cleans up afterward.

It’s alright.
It’s fine.

Cynthia still casts
shadows in the house
that I grew up in.

I wish she was home
with him.

He does too.

We all know it.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2020