On the Occasion of
the Unfortunate Burning of my Parents’ House
I can’t keep a secret, never could.
But you will never know how much I hated that place.
From its cheap doorknobs to a roofline the Winchester house would envy.
From the swampland plant-life to the non-existent nightlife.
Hated every inch of its insides and every mile in the county beyond.
Briars and hicks everywhere.
I once looked an ex lover in the eyes and thought to myself:
It’s a good thing I don’t have laser hate vision, because right now
I’d be searing a hole straight through your smug forehead and
clean out the other side.
Perhaps twenty years of feeling that way about your home
caused it to spontaneously combust.
It makes at least as much sense as Dad’s crazy conspiracy theories,
off his meds again, the isolation and malnourished soil and
undrinkable water gaining the upper hand.
Unable to admit that the wood stove he installed
all by himself wasn’t clever enough to contain
the mighty, cunning flames.
I told him about Occam’s razor.
Didn’t mention how it probably provides a perfectly plausible
explanation why Jesus hasn’t come back yet. And won’t be.
Ever.
Getting further off the grid for a decade,
he’d be the only one with a working freezer for miles
when Armageddon came.
And it came, but only for him. And his freezer.
The generator, the old car batteries stored in the garage.
The copper tubing that was to be a solar water heater.
Someday.
Mom lost all her knick-knacks.
I felt guilty knowing I won’t have to feel guilty,
throwing them away as soon as she dies.
All cheap Chinese plastic,
gaudy and responsible for a thousand closed factories.
My grandmother made beautiful things.
Quilts and afghans — thousands of interwoven hours
now ash intermingled with the ash that used to be
the hall closet.
She’s still alive, but has frail fingers and can barely see.
There’ll be no replacing them.
There was the old upright piano.
Badly in need of tuning.
My mom could tear it up in her day,
but her fingers have been failing her too.
I hate seeing a perfectly good instrument go to waste.