It’s an empty cave. A house, a hollow. Walls wall up space between us.

TV static is loud, it echoes like the front door bell you ring when you know I’m not home

I took down the pictures. Half of my house now in storage

The drip from the ceiling soiled my new clothes, it smells like wet filling cement.

You’d think you could regroup, pick the clothes up off the floor

But the desert doesn’t rain...

Poppies. She used to pick them for him as he sat dormant and quiet in his rocking chair with a blanket over his rickety knees, eyes wide open and stark like he’d seen something horrid. She had such tenderness in her eyes as she smoothed back his thinning hair and planted a soft kiss on his wrinkled skin.

Peter used to cycle by their house on his way to school. Mrs. Pickles’ house was the most ele...