Through the spotty phone connection I talked Like he was a child Like I was a child.  He may have listened; I don’t know.

Did he ever tell you about  The time when Life was colorful and He was clever? When he fooled so-and-so With his wit And intelligence And...

We’d live here We’d grow gardens Raise chickens, cattle - -only a few. We’d ride horses Gather eggs Mend fences Plant trees Play baseball...

I can only  cast shadowy glimpses on a light-infused wall 

There was no room for them- The ones that came after. They took up too much space and were not Enough.

His childhood stories were legend, lore in the family’s mental archives. The summers he had spent in body casts and polio wards, isolated from sunshine and other un-broken children and the years that had imprinted a grown-up sadness on such a little boy, held a place in her psyche as well.

Chuck had an irrational hatred for the neighbors, despite knowing almost nothing about them. He was a sucker for a conspiracy theory and was sure that whenever anything went missing or when he couldn’t find a tool, etc. (which happened a lot -- Chuck was not very careful with his tools), that someone had taken it. He loved to blame others for his screw-ups.

My father’s ashes sit in a box in my garage,

I guess I’ve thought of hope as a positive, uplifting sort of thing. Like: “We can all hope for a better future,” or “All hope is not lost.” Well. Hope lies.