Echoes


Echoes 

Listening from the hall 
as the remains of your family 
barter the lot of your fifty years here 
Framed faces still hang 
on the rose papered walls 
You in a Strauss pose 
Your bureau was emptied 
in the search for the unworthy paper, 
witnessed and signed by strangers 
My father settles on the table you sat around 
with four children and a husband 
After the Great War he paid cash 
for this porch and sunlit rooms 
Upstairs, 
your mattress lies stripped, 
linens going to your eldest girl 
I am the child of the child of your favorite son 
That willful child who broke your heart 
then died a broken man before you 
When did you take his photograph, 
first Christmas 1918, 
from the mantle shelf? 
As he faded did you dream of the boy he'd been? 
We've never met 
You are dead and I am six 
I roam your house 
I run down the hall 
My shoes loud on the floor 
where they have already taken up the rugs 
I play while adults argue over china pieces and chairs 
Your remaining children have all grown bitter 
All your love spent on the youngest of these 
with none left over 
At the end they had none left for you 
You sat alone in the chair 
where you'd rocked them years ago 
I am the child of the child of your child 
and you have taught me plenty 
I need some one to blame 
so I reach through our history 
You died blind and alone 
in a house quiet bone for bone 

-Ami Cressy 

47