#tedkooser

My dead parents try to keep out of my way. When I enter a room they have already left it, gone off to find something that ought to be done elsewhere in the house, my dad rolling the Hoover, my mother with dust rag and Pledge. At times I’ve heard their old slippers, pattering away down the hall, or seen for only an instant what might be the hem of her skirt as it swept through a door. I leave all the cleaning supplies where they’re easy to find, and they seem to last forever. “You don’t need to go!” I call out through the echoing rooms, but they’ve never turned back. They leave the floors shining behind them, and remember to turn off the lights.

#15

“One of the ancient maps of the world is heart-shaped, carefully drawn and once washed with bright colors, though the colors have faded as you might expect feelings to fade from a fragile old heart, the brown map of a life. But feeling is indelible, and longing infinite, a starburst compass pointing in all the directions two lovers might go, a fresh breeze swelling their sails, the future uncharted, still far from the edge where the sea pours into the stars.”