Think of all the crumbling structures
found in family – musty moth-eaten
wishes, lofts filled with old promises,
layers of peeling passion, stairs worn
shiny by fear, walls of silence, chipped
confidences, sun-bleached thread-bare
words, heat-warped viewpoints, mould
spores in the corners of fading minds,
skeletons in closets.
And there is a falling weight of ancestry
also, in the closed line of the mouth – tense
shoulders, stiff neck, pulsing temples
guts heavy with anxiety, cheeks red
with shame, the grip of longing, bad
blood, empty wombs, wandering hands,
poisonous thoughts.
The sink hole left by: birth mother, absent
father, adopted sons, adopted daughters,
un-met siblings, grandparents without names
– without faces, unformed family units,
the adoption triad, lost names, anniversaries,
glimpsed strangers, deconstructed lives,
falling out and falling apart.
Those that survive
live to destroy all secrets.
