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.