Remains

Finding Home #4: A poem

I once had an apartment on a cliff

Overlooking a city

Eroding desert sand

I used to bury things there

Dead birds, an occasional rodent

The land would eventually give way

I wondered if I’d see it

I once had land in Ohio

Lively green grass

My daughter stacked Rubbermaid tubs

In shaky towers, climbed to the top

Said if she flapped her arms enough

She’d fly like a bird

Who was I to argue?

I once had a small-town duplex

With a tiny front porch

Cracked and overused

A husband who brought home catfish

From a real-life fishin’ hole

Wacked ‘em with a golf club

I don’t know why

I once lived in a casita

Wide lemon tree, feathery palms

Crops of aloe, watered and loved

I wanted to bury my dog there

But it was illegal

And she died by injection

What else could I have done?

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Check out the rest of the Finding Home series.

Finding Home #1: Hesitation is about living where you feel out of place

Finding Home #2: Oh, Baby, The Places We’ll Go warps time and space for the sake of romance

Finding Home #3: Helen After 97 is a pocket-sized album of memories about one fiery grandmother