When the Tourists Go Home

when the tourists go home someone special sleeps in the hall most of the time he smells like wet grass once so full of life, he licked my face but now, he has become just an old friend winding my heart around his long pink tongue he used to hang out at the firehouse with dad now dad says, Free, he’s not much use to anyone, or so dad says but dad is now lost in the war the war of words between mom and dad where lawyers are shadows and salacious lies hide tucked in tight between the lines of a separation but even lawyers can’t separate memories the smiles seem so strange these days in yellowed pictures under plastic sleeves once, they were new and we were all happy before mom took her and dad took me and the bank took the rest the rest is rusted as an old spoke wheel junkyard fancy fancy words on long law paper jails, and courtroom wrecks ships crash on childhood rocks inside our burning house and broken chains rotting in the rain where the old play set sits abandoned and ugly as harsh words explode in the courtroom while thick smoke fires in my parent's eyes burn bright red and ink stains the document turning us to drift free like broken boats crashing on a hostile shore my parents chased love away one night when blood flowed on the kitchen floor and the cops came splitting mom and dad and us up in separate corners of town closing the door on family and fury