Treachery of Images

This is not your pipe,
Shrouding your children with contempt.
Stale ribbons at its end,
Searching upward for the ceiling.
There are no signals to where you have gone.
These are the lives that haunt you. The ones
good intentions could not ward off.

The television is silent,
without the soft static to sing me goodnight.
The stove is cold.
Mom’s spaghetti for
deserving boys and girls who’ve done their chores.
Our driveway is empty,
only dried up oil stains left behind on the pavement.

These are not bridges between us,
Only smoldering metal and fleeting embers.

There is no peace although it is quiet.
This home was meant for ghosts.