Sister says, mother never lied
And father never told the truth;
Everything changes after that.
Why did it come so late,
Reason,
In its absence, one might still know
Magnificence, the outpouring of warmth,
Cross-eyed plateaus
From which the sky unfurled
And even keeled solitude,
A favorite companion.
Then it arrived,
Guarded like a gnawed tibia
In the storage closet.
Whole skeletons unraveled,
Filed amongst disco pants
And an odd tweed coat;
A dirty decade of unlaundered secrets.
There is no consolation, not yet,
Mother only knew her truth
Father believed his lies;
Everything changed before that.
* * *
Cleaning out the drafts. Written in mid 2009.