Take them, he wept, his last request
before he died. And we did.
And they laid there in our home
where we compartmentalized them
into non-existence, ignored them
like you might an older drunk at the bar who
sits at your table and wants to be loved— or to
score some cocaine—and then leaves after an
uncomfortable silence
in which your entire group looks away
from a heavy truth they don’t want
to lift just yet.
I say this because she’s been gone
for two weeks now, and I’ve wholly
avoided her name. Which is to say
that my father grew up in a house of silence.
Which is to say that as my grandfather lay dying,
he turned not towards his wife, or his God, but
towards the gun rack.
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