sorrow doesn’t knock
she just lets herself in
and throws down
her bags
on the guest room bed
and then picks and unpacks
like a tandem parade
and puts her knick-knacks
high on handsome
display
then she sits at the kitchen
and asks to be fed
and not if
you had
other plans instead
and she mandates attention
all
evening long
but snubs when you mention
you work at dawn
like a mother she hints
with laughter at flaws
as she points
out the dints
in the rafters and walls
and she finds every
fault
from highest to low
and says,
“Boy have you really
let yourself go.”
but it’s just my cyclical fate
to slip through fickle states
sometimes the goodness stays
sometimes I sleep for days
when I awake, she’s gone,
without a note
though she always leaves,
what if one day
she won’t?