Upstairs in the room
where my son used to live
I hear a stampede of animals
charging the roof, right above
where his head used to be.
I hear so many of them, God knows
what they are: squirrels, elephants, rats
for sure. He’d be scared up there,
that’s what he said, and now I know why.
I worry these creatures might crawl
through the open windows, getting
louder overhead as I lay on the bed
like he did trying to fall asleep
after a long day at school, football,
the things they do we can never really
understand. I’m listening to my neighbor
talk on the phone; can hear his side
of the conversation, her side, too,
seems so intrusive but I can’t stop
and probably my son listened, too, heard
the old married couple who moved away,
used to get high, sing old songs at the piano,
what did he think of them—were they a comfort
or a freak show, a window into what his parents
might become. I don’t remember thinking anything
when I was fourteen except when can I
get out of here, as I studied my mother,
her friends, how they moved their mouths,
how their lips would curl down
when they spoke of their husbands.
This is what we do. This is the only way
we can understand our own species, shake
the dead off our bodies, invite ourselves
into the new world of ourselves.