House Dust

is skin cells shrouding the broom that once gathered them,
draping it now in gray; his blind calico’s brown eyelashes;
pearl fibers sloughed off thread she strung through buttons
two nights before they buried him in his white church shirt;
pollen the daisies he gave her exhale from their kitchen jars.

They form blankets fogging up the mantel, cherry headboard,
work shoes perched by the door, Churchill shelved on the sill,
cells throughout the house he planted by the creek to bless her.
His memories snow on her cheeks tonight, laying quilts of dust
on her arms wrapping dreams under their worn wedding sheets.

Two lifetimes ago, Catherine Zickgraf performed her poetry in Madrid. Now her main jobs are to write and hang out with her family. Her work has appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Pank, Victorian Violet Press, and The Grief Diaries. Her chapbook, Soul Full of Eye, is published through Aldrich Press.