it's a common enough thing
to go back to the house.
the scene of my father's childhood
and some of my own,
to deal with what death leaves
behind for us to rummage through.
to dismantle a life possession by possession.
to strip away what has been
but will be no more.
in the still, silent house
they began
and I came across
a photo of myself,
carefully removing the frame,
which would most likely be discarded,
I found layers of pictures
and I peeled back the years of my youth,
my childhood, watching myself shrink,
become younger and regress
back to the small child
I once was,
one that I had forgotten about,
that no longer existed. a sadness touched my soul
and I could not bring myself
to recapture time and flick
through the other way
from those lost days
to the present.
I stood alone in the living room
with my history
while the future
unfolded around me.
only the clock,
on the mantelpiece,
stubbornly working,
disturbed me
as it marched on with a beating,
carrying me headlong with it
into an uncertain destiny.