Most Sundays slipped through the bottom window 
with just a few loose nails pulled from its hands.
They weren't poor like a loaf of bread, 
but worn thin; dryer-socks clinging to the sides.
It would start with warm coffee,
and newspapers bad to good, spread across
the couch.
The room with guards and ropes, chains across
our mouths,
but listen to this.
She would whisper through it all.
listen to this.
Broken marriages, faded linen and toys;
dusty fingernails scratched across the wooden floor.
No one was listening to the bad days to come, 
in spirited school hallways and stolen
prayers under the bed.
Everyone shot bullets from stone hands.
listen to this.
Louder here, and when the windows would 
shake the smoke from her cigarette.
It was angry, then sad in the full way
words sound when they pile up on each other.
O Fortuna,
Velut luna.
The walls peeled its skin from the inside of every  
room; the poor belief in what might come to be.
listen to this.
she would say.
Listen to how hopeful it sounds without
even trying.