Clearances

What is it the gone want us to do and see?
He rose to disrobe in debris - torn
from the bone of memory. Her hands
on his eyes. Lost in light, without weight.
With what ease she was dragged away.

She found a trunk in the outhouse dairy.
Fingers unhinging fragments of cloth,
a worn bolster hiding her banned book.
Each sinful word, her mother had erased -
sacrifice to the censor-hearted deity.

He found a suitcase in the attic room
where his father slept; an empty bed clean.
Opening to years of porn that no longer shocks,
though the women’s frocks his Dad also kept
he now holds to his face - breathing the seams.

This is what we find in our clearances.
This is what they choose not to sweep away.
The drag. The swell. The hidden. The smell.
The flaring. The unforgiving legacy.

You found copper-plate traces of letters -
incendiaries retained in envelopes where
it no longer matters. Unanswered mystery:
Dear Son. This comes to you in lamentation.
This may be my last letter home. Write to me.