Love moves in
Your Great Grandmother’s
heirloom necklace.
Check.
She’s the one who died screaming in the attic?
Yes.
Your ex-husband’s
lucky rabbit’s foot
you stole when he left you?
Yes.
Check.
Baby shoes
from your son,
and from your daughter who died.
Yes. I see.
They’re in.
A music box
I must never wind
because the music
is untraceable
and makes you cry? Check.
The mirror—
Your father’s gift.
But he was cruel.
Most cruel, but the mirror
is yours.
We’re ready to move—
Wait, there’s one more room…
You open the door
and my eyes go up and up
to a mound, no, a hill
Of luggage, old dresses,
dusty books, broken dolls,
diaries, love letters, a half
mile high. This is impossible!
This is love.
Sean Lause is Professor of English at Rhodes State College in Lima, Ohio. His poems have appeared in Another Chicago Magazine, The Minnesota Review, The Alaska Quarterly, The Pedestal, Sanskrit, The Saranac Review, and Poetry International.
