I turn down the slow road.
The Cypress has seen this land free of rectangles.
I pull into the shade of the carport
which once sheltered a man overnight
in my Dad's Karmann Ghia.
I open the castle door
wishing I could still ring the bell.
Up the stairs my uncle built.
Past the shutters I opened and closed with my day
a lifetime ago.
Creak open the screen door my cousin replaced.
Slide the key into the door just below the axe marks
from when the firemen couldn't open the door.
I step inside and leave my shoes where
my hardworking grandfather laid his to rest.
On the left is the bedroom my grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles, cousins, nephews and cousins' kids slept.
My grandmother's table and lazy boy and lit up with colors
filtered through her fingers in the form
of stained glass.
Floorboards squeak under feet as they did for my
Dad and Uncle in college.
I walk through to the kitchen where my
Dad's old card table rests.
The croaks of the cormorants fade in and out with the wind
as I walk out the back barefoot.
Pinching my feet on the rocks
my grandparents did when they would go
swim in the ocean together.
I walk to the shore where
my brother and I used to pass four house
before and after lunch in the water.
I enter the water which once
held great-great-grandparent Fishermen,
grandparents and parents afloat and
which now holds what remains of all of them.
The sting of the cold reminds me
I am not to be mixed in just yet.
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