- Vol. 02
- Chapter 12
The Pathos of An Attic
I rarely go up there anymore.
Too many shards and tatters jutted out,
like an obtusely ill-grown tooth
scraping the membrane
of my tender memories.
Those afternoons were soft
like an unbroken promise, we used sit up there,
in a great chair that could fit two,
with a book of short fables,
squinting in July's sunlight.
She was made of ringlets of laughters,
made of the scent of an apple orchard.
She was made of all good things
that slipped through my fingers.
Quiet ripples of endless summer nights,
and her dress was drenched in sweet wine.
I rarely go up there anymore.
Why would I?
To sit in that empty chair,
and gather pots of dirty daffodils?
To read those moth-eaten letters,
and utter sentences with no arrival?
To be drowned yet again
in the immense and darkening silence?
Or to be scolded by that cranky old piano,
desperately out of tune,
and desperately missing her touch?
The Pathos of An Attic
All day I rummage through the other parts of the house -
the den's nose, the kitchen's fingertips,
the living room's tear ducts,
until the attic is as far as she is to me,
a distant nebulous star.
At nightfall, I sit upon the broken staircase,
palms dusty, sorrows over.
The wind quickens to a new horizon.
I see myself forgotten.
I love her still among those shredded things.
But I rarely go up there anymore.