rough house

 

Two beds are empty. My sisters know the smell of damp streets, car seats, pinner joints, know that while our parents sleep, the world keeps on writhing. Our parents: Who would scorn two figures in their single beds, flickering sleep, two dogs amassed upon the mother’s legs? How could history be kinder? We cannot help them here. A moment, a landscape: drift of oleander, bottlebrush suspended above their worries. See? My sisters have crawled back through the window.