The way my father told it,
cousin Alan
was a gunshot wound
through the back of his stomach.
Ant Karen
was a smoker. She died
last winter
without our noticing. No one had seen her
for years. She died
in a condo
somewhere in Florida,
where she left her parents
to arrange the funeral
chairs. My mother had turned to me
and said this,
in the parking lot outside
Salvation Army.

When the fuse went out
with a bang, then
a flare of light,
It felt as if the sun
had exploded
off the upstairs porch
where We were all smoking cigarettes,
and Alex
was drunk and sprawled
across the floorboards. Will
was claiming to have seen God
in the moment of the flash.
The power stayed out for hours,
and the sun died
its usual, casual death
while the house could not turn itself
back on and so
The house grew thick,
then quiet.