18 rock path

an old friend sent me a link
to this house I used to rent

it is all gutted 
nothing but walls and floors
for sale now
this husk of home
on long island

even then I was sad
living on the street
marilyn monroe
used to vacation on
a newlywed in
this tiny cabin

it was supposed
to be a beginning
but all I can remember
is the black mold
growing in the basement
and the silent days
of endless longing

in the spring
tiny worms fell from
the trees and caught in my hair
and covered the street
I tried to imagine they were
silk worms but it didn't work
so I stopped taking walks

I tried to get a job 
at this place that made
grave stones
because it was beautiful 
in a way I couldn't describe
but ended up working at 
trader joe's instead

all the customers were mean
and I cried in the stock room
during my breaks
I made a friend who hated
it there as much as I did

one day while I was 
sitting on an empty pallet
smoking a cigarette
day dreaming about being
a famous writer
she pointed out a dead sparrow
in the parking lot
and asked me to save it
​
I held it in my hands
 imagined it was alive
and it flew away
she smiled and said
I knew you could save things

at night I went home
to a man
who didn't speak
his stony silence 
was not the wedded bliss
I had imagined
so I started writing
to kill the the loneliness

I wrote about a girl
that was a changeling
with a fairy mother
and a demon dad
that was never around
I never finished it
I never finish a lot of things

when we moved
they told us the house 
was going to be torn down
I kept finding these baby possums
under the porch
I saved them in a shoe box
and took them to an animal shelter
they didn't want them
but took them anyway

I bet they died
because I never found
their mother
I looked and looked
but she hid under the porch
I bet she died too
from sorrow



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