2.

After father died

the love was all through the house

untamed and sometimes violent.

When the dates came we went up to our rooms

and mother entertained.

Frank Sinatra's "Strangers in the Night,"

the smell of Chanel No.5 in her hair and the laughter.

We sat crouched at the top of the stairs.

In the morning we found mother asleep on the couch

her hair messed, and the smell

of stale liquor in the room.

We knelt on the floor before her,

one by one touched our fingers

over the red flush in her face.

The chipped sunlight through the shutters.

It was a dark continent

we and mother shared;

it was sweet and lonesome,

the wake men left in our house.