The Grandparents

Their house was always dark; it felt like held breath.

Donald Hall's.

None of us has been in a closed mouth -- we've had them, but not been in them.

If we had entry, they would be opened mouths, or resealed ones, or intruded ones.


Yet Hall makes beautiful sense.

Something is ready to escape, but isn't doing so.

Something fills familiar space, but isn't itself space.

It can't be seen, even in light, but it's not light, anyway.


What's there got trapped. It must seep or explode.

It can't be re-breathed for it's changed its form, once held.

It's at its end of livability. It's stale.

The past as seen by the present ready for its future.


...