This particular piece is inspired off a piece of furniture
from my living room. Doesn’t sound very inspiring? Maybe not. But take into
consideration the things in your life that hold meaning and that bring up old
memories.
The other night, I was sitting in our antique rocking chair
by the fireplace, listening to the popping of sap bubbles and feeling warm for
a few moments in this dreadful winter. I just so happened to be reading
another book (surprise, surprise), and when I got up, the rocking chair
groaned, as it always does whichever way it moves. It irritates my sister to
all degrees when we’re reading the Bible
aloud, and I so much as lean forward or, I don’t know, rock. Heaven forbid I should rock in a rocking chair. How dare I!
That being said, this poor piece of furniture has seen a
lot. It’s been with my family from Washington State to Germany to Hawaii to
Kansas and more. It’s felt packing tape on the wood where it shouldn’t have
been, and it’s been recovered and cleaned at least once.
To you, it may be just a chair. But to me, it’s a piece
that’s shared my memories.
Rocking Chair
In
memoriam of the siblings I never knew
She
creaks
like an
old woman,
pressure
shifting on
her antique bones
as she stoops forward
sits
back
and rises on her legs,
joints popping.
Would that I may be so loved
should age settle in
like a silk layer
of dust,
like the sand
sinking in an hourglass.
She first changed her dress
when I was but a child, still
playing hide and seek behind her
bosom—
later my mother lost
my
sibling—
who
would
she or he
have been?
Now I sit and turn the pages
o’er and o’er while the fireplace
sweeps
up
the forgotten summer days.
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