Old Key
I keep the cold metal
of these memories,
the only way back inside
because I am not ready
to let go when my family
packs up and leaves the final home
from my childhood. Here,
fir trees hunch forward
after heavy snow, a striking beam
of sunlight cuts through the slider
at dawn, and summer’s heat
drips like butter dipped lobsters
boiled in the backyard
where we buried our first pet, Kitty.
The key still unlocks the side door
in my mind and lets out
a familiar groan as it peels open
to reveal them all bellowing inside—
my mom and dad, together,
my grandfather, alive,
our second cat’s soft gray fur
rising and falling in her sleep
before the fisher cat claimed her.
I can only visit from the outside
like a ghost, a blanket of white moonlight
stretches across the grass, salt air unfurls
like a whisper from the shoreline,
and the bones of our dead cats’ dissolve,
turning over and over each season
into dirt so fine it’s as if they
were never there at all.
Amber Watson is a foster and adoptive parent living in Durham, NC with her husband, spunky teenager, and three rescue animals. She is a graduate of Wheaton College, MA, earning departmental honors and awards for creative writing. She currently writes poetry, freelance lifestyle articles, and blogs about food and restaurants.
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