The moon has moved
to its winter window. The spirits
in the house are restless; old
magazines slump off stacks.
She pokes about in corners, moving boxes,
rustles papers, and thinks of a great-aunt
scribbling notes — where she hid the silver,
who gets the chiming clock,
divesting.
Uncles wait in boxes for their handwriting
to be admired. On a beach the child
who becomes her father, sits
in a dress and straw hat.
Beside his report cards.
Also perfect. Voices trickle
from the attic. She cannot move
without bruising books inscribed
to someone else. This room
belongs to her father’s family, that one
to her husband’s, the closet
to an ancestral diary and a daughter’s
discarded dresses.
She opens the airless Chinese chest
and gasps for breath, recalling
the scent of a mildewed past.
Pulling tight the shabby bathrobe,
she piles hunting trophies on tragic
clippings, rearranges cousins,
shuts the door.
Tonight the moon regains apogee.
The cat patrols the hallway,
challenges the shadows
in her house.
-- Klancy Clark de Nevers
