We don’t speak ill of the dead, you remind me as I drag two lawn chairs over a wooden threshold, its legs yawning in defeat. I’m organizing by trauma, rocking chair between barstool, her favorite recliner bobbing back and forth in agreement. Folding a notepad open, yes we never talk about the dead, but I’m in the mood for accountability. I’ve been collecting her silences as a child—clinging to hips as she pours us a memory, edited, rephrased or redacted, always reworking its flesh. This table an offering, a board of sighs, labored breaths, tuts of but it didn’t happen that way. You see—I could say her name three times in the mirror and still be met with darkness, greased with denial because no, we won’t talk about that night in December, headlights screaming across a wrong-way exit. Our guests creak forward, but you’re still fussing with the blinds. 

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