There's a man who hangs the moon above our beds
and comes home wearing a second dusk on his collar.
He reads the little one to sleep in two soft voices,
then drives off toward a porch light that isn't ours.
My mother is the kitchen's only sun.
She warms the rooms he keeps leaving cold,
sets four plates as though the table were honest,
and never once asks the empty chair where it's been.
She is far too much gold for the small pocket he keeps her in.
I have learned to carry two weathers in one chest
the storm that wants to tear his name from every wall,
the quiet that still wants to climb into his lap.
Both of them are true. Both of them are heavy.
For my brother I become a wall with a window painted on it.
Let him believe the view is open fields.
Let him keep the whole father I can only half hold now.
There's a number you can call when a house is burning.
There is no number for the house that only smolders
the one that keeps its shape, keeps its supper warm,
and aches somewhere deep in the beams
where no one ever thinks to look.
2d ago
Jun 3, 2026 at 2:15 PM UTC
There's a man who hangs the moon above our beds
and comes home wearing a second dusk on his collar.
He reads the little one to sleep in two soft voices,
then drives off toward a porch light that isn't ours.
My mother is the kitchen's only sun.
She warms the rooms he keeps leaving cold,
sets four plates as though the table were honest,
and never once asks the empty chair where it's been.
She is far too much gold for the small pocket he keeps her in.
I have learned to carry two weathers in one chest
the storm that wants to tear his name from every wall,
the quiet that still wants to climb into his lap.
Both of them are true. Both of them are heavy.
For my brother I become a wall with a window painted on it.
Let him believe the view is open fields.
Let him keep the whole father I can only half hold now.
There's a number you can call when a house is burning.
There is no number for the house that only smolders
the one that keeps its shape, keeps its supper warm,
and aches somewhere deep in the beams
where no one ever thinks to look.