We are moving a sofa down mother’s stairs
Under the weight we creep like years
crash walls gouge plaster
Our worst crash is not because you day-dream
about being stuck 13,000 feet up on a mountain
ripping up a book to burn to stay alive
Our worst crash is not because I have large
unsupportive calves as you say I laugh
and stumble though those are both bad crashes
Our worst crash is when mom sneaks down two stairs
to brush off cobwebs from the sofa bottom
You adjust sideways snap Goddammit
I worry you will lean down press the sofa
through my body payback for trying to kill you as a child
you say a dozen times I recall only two
On some grey later day in purgatory
we’ll probably be moving furniture again
god darting unnecessarily dusting risking it all
so a heaven will come all heaviness gone
south not a brother left unmoved
heaven like a home we come to know