Screen

I wake early, again, the room is all windows and the radiator purrs against April chills, I sweat. There is poetry in the air today, did you hear? The poets always take themselves too seriously, always take each other too seriously always take
the world
too seriously. 

The dating apps say they're looking for someone who
doesn't take themselves too seriously. 

He doesn't write you any more, doesn't call, doesn't figure in your dreams, you wonder who cut the last cord. One day your parents picked you up for the last time, but it's just a platitude. My apartment fills with heirlooms, delicate trinkets, moments in time my ancestors touched. The sign my father stole from a train bathroom door in the 60s. The ukulele my grandfather took to war. The trunk that brought my elders out of the woods up north, some time in the late 18th century. My mother's vinyl suitcase. My grandmother is everywhere, because she was the storyteller. Everything she touched became a thing that grounded me, omnia mea mecum porto, this apartment is all birdsong now. Your mother calls to say they need her back for more tests. 

My mother calls to say they need her back for more tests. 

I'd say you can't make poetry out of that
but the truth is I don't want
to.