Outside A-Frames

I've been asked to remember
a swiss-cheese past,
half made up
through foggy photographs.
To find the home
of red shag carpet,
dog hair and busy fathers.

I think we've lost the pictures on purpose.

Of rats and flooded holy ceilings,
where I would hope for warmth
beneath prickley-woolen dreams.
She'd change me outdoors,
where Freedom stole neighborhood horses
trampling her favorite plastic garden.
Calloused children run for fun -
teaching the young to blister hands early
with that rusted axe,
still resting in the holes we dug.
While the A-Frame stands erect,
frowning still -
but the people inside
tire - then work away another day
only to pay that ubiquitous bill.
We were Isolated in red shag carpet
hiding a family's emotional blood stains
burred with time,
under a manifested A-Frame haze.
Mother's trees stretched upon themselves
while the weeping one embraced me
and we'd blink away another glance
of that A-Frame yards away.
My first home furnished little grace,
remembering somehow
where I am now

and how much I loved that place.
Jordan R Shaver