Sometimes I think,
I should have stayed.
Til death do us part we vowed.
In sickness and in health.
Were there words about
not putting daggers in my soul, was there anything about not breaking me down until I forgot who I was?
Friday my therapist tells me, “remember who you are”.
I’ve spent the last four years remembering who you told me I was for twenty long years.
Too weak,
fat,
bad hair style,
wrong shoes,
bland cook,
messy in the kitchen
not good enough,
never good enough,
always wrong.
Who am I, I try to remember.
I try to reach deep inside and pull out the daggers one by one so my heart doesn’t bleed out.
I am strong.
I am capable.
I am desirable.
I am loved.
I am good enough.
**** it. I am all that and more.

And you? Nothing but a coward.
Even my leaving could not stop you from trying to destroy me.
But you didn’t count on me remembering who I am.
Did you?

My grandparent's house
ten-kid-large and sinking
on the corners of remembrance
Remodeled now, to
...tenements

Honeycomb
...the remnants

Irish immigrant and Scottish orphan's child
She sang on the ferry
He fell in love
"The rest is the history of us...."
Wide
as the Connecticut River, grieving--
in their sunset....
____

This-- chair
is his

I am afraid of it-- of his learning
of the shiny badge pinned to his coat
of his dying...
Golden leather of it
soothes
his memory--
of another continent
of the once warmth-- of a distant hearth
so darkened now--
where his head once rested
...his hands
and,
I fear--
his mind....

I will not sit in it
as if he will come back, to take his place
I am afraid of him--
with his chair--
all worshipful and empty
like a high place, abandoned
to the heart attack
not for grandchild play
Seat of Authority
still stamped
beside the standing cold--
brass ashtray
Pipe smoke imagines itself
against the ceiling in the words
of Yates and Milton
He read to them
and somehow--

Paradise is Lost....
_____

This house is cold now-- even in the summer-- cold
Worn as only large families wear
The War
of waiting shadows
--four brothers who were spared

Anna Mae, in charge, too young,
worries in abrupt dark
of dinning room
Her face, haunted--
an archway-- ever empty
by the large and ghostly table
covered by its web of lace--
a bridal veil
of Catholic impossibility...
Anna Mae, held hostage by her thoughts
of darling, Sean...

Aunt Lil's “breakdown”
with cigarette and thorazine  
quaking quiet in her corner

Aunt Nell,
as blind as smart-*** hell
ironing, darning
with threads that thatch
the wounded socks
Holds it all together, scolding--
Brought the welcomed jelly donuts
sneered as Yankees clobbered Boston
all-- while drinking yellow ale

Uncle Eddie-- laughing hoarsely
cracks nuts over a wooden bowl

Written, felt
things that never happened
delved into feelings realisms
only philosophers observe
imagined worlds
of pureness of soft
pelts petted a kitten
took in an orphan
hugged a flower
felt for a bug
flew with angels
eagles and moths
climbed tallest mountains
just reaching for God
or saw visions of clarity
amidst delusions of haunting
reality
fell down at times we had wished
we stood tall
and been heroes when no
one else was around
we have shed a fountain
together apart
to make the deepest ocean enamor
We've and I and you and her
and  him and that dog that cat that flea
have just lived
like that mysterious thing
that sent the Universe
spinning around
just look
in a mirror

I do not know whose eyes perceive
my finite movement toward light.

Each letting go, a small cry,
each forward move my life's
migratory assurance of what
none of us can ever know.

The genetic certainty of cells
propels the forebrain
with its stumbling feet,
while a heartache of hope
wins each moment even
as it is lost to the next.

And we must accept
the impermanent flow
that is like air, necessary
and sacred; tears are not
the only salt of sorrow.