Start in chapter three. Skip past the luxury
bedrooms, the mid-century modern wall clocks
in their dull-green gold. Flip right by the claw-
footed tubs. There, do you see that corner, the one
with the faux-wood planter? I lived there once,
not as a memory, but as a real boy. My father
collected alabaster birds and perched them on
the hutch, looking down out the window. You can’t
see them or him in this picture. I miss the way
their eyes never moved, never hungered for anything,
did not know how to die. Just outside of this shot,
my father also did not know how to die. I want to
step through and beg him not to learn, never to. Just
stay in those shadows with the fake plastic succulents
and orange crushed-velvet sectional. Please, don’t move.