Foundation.

-my grandfather was a carpenter

he built our house, he gave

its insides furniture, fastened

our lives furnished our names

i’m told it smelled bright and whole

babies delivered, weddings celebrated

holidays survived, dishes broken

discontents mended, walls hardened

furniture repaired, children aged

-when the flames ate it, lapped it up

and at last stopped, the ashes were wet

and still, we stood over them slumped

and cried in generations, foraging

inside the dank black skeleton

phoenixes of our past did not rise

a taste stayed in our throats and burned

refusing to die or be swallowed leaving

us looking for the old one, on brick walls

friends' warm beds, in kitchen pots

and anywhere else love may have been hiding