When the moving vans took away a life
bundling it in storage, turning out fly swabbed light
when the house stood empty and of us, nothing remained
her death seemed to have resisted claim
yet she was no more there than mouse who leaves behind footprint and soft down of hair, gone beyond the floorboards
her family cleared out and dusted her remains, placed away in a china cabinet for someone
many years from now to produce a much touched pawn ticket, and re-varnish
she wondered
would they thrive without her?
in time, will her children recall the best of her?
or those days she stood tired and grumpy, keeping warm by the oven avoiding world’s bidding and invite
it was her shame
to waste so much time
if she had known she would have stepped from waxen kitchen like fire bird, gathered them in her arms and driven to the coast
to watch the rise and fall of life crashing on wave
and smell the turn of life, brimming with wet salt
she would have seen within her the burgeoning canker and cast it like a bottle of cobalt blue
out into the surrendering molt of waves, hoping it would lose itself and not return to erase her, premature and cruel
a reminder we are visitors
to this shore
not long in our stay
often missing our purpose, locked away in effort and grind, mowing lawns, picking up, wiping down, staring out into the immaculate disorder
she would have said to her children, take your shoes off, wriggle your toes in, feel the sand, the undone clasp, the undone movement
into life and laughter and sorrow, creating lines of wonder on our cheeks, run and run until your bird chest burns
scream into the sound
cover yourself with sun and never
ever
come up for air
poetry by Candice Daquin, first published on Hijacked Amygdala