At evening when the lamp is lit,
Around the fire my parents sit;
They sit at home and talk and sing,
She saw it coming: the cold pit
in the bed, his irregular hours,
strolling in with expectation
I’m listening to my father and his brother,
both in their eighties, debate their childhood
from adjoining La-Z-Boy recliners.
I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk
down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs
to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you”