Burn The House Down

Since I left the valley of home I have not much feared any other loss.
—D.H. Lawrence

The year Vance and I both came home
for Christmas, we occupied bedrooms
at opposite ends of the hall. Vance had
health problems galore: in the middle
of the night he would go to the bathroom,
and the smell was so strong it woke me up.
But it was okay; we were under the same
roof, which didn’t happen very often,
in fact it never did again. In fact, it’s
all gone now, the folks dead, the house
sold, the hallway, the bedrooms,
the kitchen I still have on videotape,
with Mom slicing baked ham on my 37th
birthday, now the scenes of only voices
we never heard, or would ever want to.
The kids did the right thing at the end
of What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? To spare
their dead, 500 lb. mother the indignity
of being removed by crane, they set a
match to the place. Roll the credits.
Not a bad idea. Not a bad idea at all.