he’d left me,
and I closed the iron gate
with them on the outsidewhere uninvited people belong.
He left my son a view he couldn’t afford.
He left me a home no one could take.
And he left me the one thing
I’d never had in that guest room:
a boundary that holds.
They valued how things look.
I valued whether things last.
Only one of us
still has a home.
THE END
