you sleep with the oven door opened…the way mom used to…thermostat set at 80…it is spring and the lilacs are starting to bloom…soon heaven’s colors on earth…yet…you sleep with the oven door opened…the way mom used to…

and winter coats not put away…nor sweaters…or thermals…is it a cold breeze that flows through this house…i hear whispers…hollow whispers that come from down the hall as you sit there in the Lazy-boy silently watching T.V. reruns at 3 in the morn…one eye blinking…the other closed…with smells of last year’s turkey…bacon drippings…cheesy caseroles…all burnt…all done away with…fills the house…you sleep with the oven door opened…the way mom used to…

it is quiet…hum of a heater is all that is heard…lamplights on…no tossing and turning…just a stale sense of being…corpses rotting in a furnace set long ago when a family ended…done away with by fights…hurt feelings…lies…accusations…deaths….yet you sleep with that oven door opened… the way mom used to….

trying to bring someone back is impossible…she is gone…these odors are not rich…they reak of deceptions…perhaps that’s what the family was…in this house where cold was always complained about…never enough warmth…you sleep with the oven door opened…the way mom used to…

please…close the door…