after a winter of emotional sorting, new life was visible: the house went on the market soon before spring equinox

but of course potential buyers felt on their skin all that had happened there — parents marriage dead and collecting dust in the attic i remember happily eating pizza by the big back window the day we owned it, what happened — and shimmied away to other less haunted houses

like our family esteem, the price dropped low and it finally sold in june — happy birthday to me — they settled in deep july the humidity appropriately weighty and the metal key hot enough to sizzle the brand of ownership onto new palms every childhood memory transferring hands in a matter of seconds

and some other family will enjoy my sun-splashed winter reading spot, back window utterly capturing the shy winter sun

and some other family will enjoy the room where my grandfather expired beige carpet permanently stained with viscerals

and some other family will enjoy the garden, the bedroom where i made out with high-school boyfriend, the bathroom that quickly molds, my tie dye stains on the basement floor the maples in the yard, the sunflower patch, the cupboard that held all my packed lunch material.

some other family will cook, clean, lounge, have people over for holiday dinners, laugh, cry, beat each other at card games, make tea, drink wine. their pets will live and die here, and they’ll think they own this place.

and some other family will enjoy the bones of the family before them piled under the basement steps.

s.r.mccann

99 days after

we tied the knot,

11,411 days after

my parents did the same

they untied it,

undecided their commitment.

.

well, to be precise

they had been undeciding it

for years, the length of a life,

which became the long slow

length of a death

quietly disentangling

the whole length

and breadth of their souls until

the one strand remaining was us,

the children.

.

and then, i guess

the strand under stress

became taut, stretched,

and finally snapped.

.

99 days after we said forever,

i looked at my husband and

had to tell him, crying,

that my family was splitting

apart, dying, it seemed.

and we decided again,

as you must over the course of a life together,

to keep tying and tying and tying

and never undeciding

to love.

2 sec summary: I’m aware tumblr is changing, and I haven’t posted in a while but I’m still making stuff! if you wanna keep reading my poetry head on over to Insta @sallie_mccanntupper

biker kid

walking home from favorite cafe:

a small boy rides a two-wheeler,

smoothly, but for the clomping up-downs

of the uneven panes of sidewalk cement,

lifted skyward by tree roots.

these same sidewalks

have hurt my biking butt

many a time. i always

try to bike on the road.

but a kid can’t do that.

his dad trails behind, jogging.

“you’re doing a great job buddy!”

the boy says: 

“no i’m not!”

they leave me in their wake,

thinking, why am i so

often like the small

biking boy,

the chastising voice

in the midst of encouragement?

why does he talk to himself

that way?

why do i?

sallie mccann