After Mom Leaves II
i find myself searching
through his things.
while he’s at work,
i feel the bottom
of his sock drawer.
i stand on his bed
to get a better look
at his closet’s top shelf.
on his dresser i find
crumpled napkins
from restaurants
where i’ve never eaten.
i find my mother’s pendant
in his medicine cabinet,
next to a bottle of blue pills
i can’t bring myself to inspect.
in a book on his nightstand
i find a picture
of a young woman,
except it’s not my mother,
and on the back is a name
i’ve never heard
at any family dinner.
underneath his bed
i find a box of condoms
and realize some things
when we were nocturnal
burrowing rodents,
a meteorite hit the earth
eradicating all life
on its surface.
how warm
the nuclear winter
must have been.
the sky white with fire,
we hibernated
beneath the soil.
how alluring
it must have been
to our tunneling ancestors.
the only glimmer on earth:
a peephole of star shine.
fossilized nests are still found
packed with shiny things:
teeth, petrified scales,
hardened corneas.
each bit proof
that we have always been
attracted to shiny things,
apt at digging holes
and filling them
with souvenirs.
BIO: Harold Hoffman was born in San Pablo, California. Raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, Harold now resides and works in Long Beach, California. His work has appeared in The Quercus Review, The Chiron Review, and Sendero.
