conflict avoidance 101

if there is a hole in the sun,
close one eye. once when i was
a girl i found my uncle like a goldfish
belly-up on the stairs. i bathed him
because no one else was awake. he drinks
like a goldfish, aimless & light bulb-eyed. 
he does not remember. neither do i.
in my family we don't talk
about things like this. they become 
trapeze wires in the house. sometimes
i use them to dry my clothes. 
sometimes i write a poem & that is as close
as i get to telling anyone the truth.
my father chased me once with 
a rattlesnake or was it a knife or was it
just a toy? memories crunch under my feet
like dead leaves. i was taught that
to love is to forget what they did. 
in some ways this has been easier. if you
leave a memory alone long enough 
you will start to question if it was real.
until one day over coffee you & your brother
will remember a night when 
all the windows folded in & the house
was so dark. we found each other. 
turned on a night light. saw the ceiling
crawling & shut the light off. better to
pretend there was nothing wrong
& to stare. in the morning the windows
returned or did we cut them open?