DISPLAY CASE

Snow browning into Spring-

antique boots decay at the front door.

Could easily hang up on your mother in mid-sentence,

wipe here and your father from the slate.

Start over even at this age.

Romanian paper, delivered every week,

always one week late, bringing home-town news to

father's glasses.  The microscope seeing

invisible life for the first time.

True life magnified.  The risk of being burned

by thickening sunlight as it narrows

on what was once alive.

Mom decorated like a wax sculpture.

What Lenin must look like, entombed in his own history.

Airtight.  Everyone passing, considering spitting,

pissing on the glass.  They weigh the differences of

crime, punishment, satisfaction.

Refracted hands of your parents,

a spoon, broken at the horizon in a glass of water,

the setting sun, the newspaper, a pair of folded glasses

set on the table, shadows cast in elongated angles,

fingers nearly touching you the way

a child's finger's feel museum glass,

attempting to hold the dead.