curtains tender_square two nights ago i dreamt that i was alone in a neighbor’s house. the house was two doors down from where i’d grown up; it belonged to my childhood friend’s grandmother. whenever i think about this house, as welcoming and full of family love as it was, i know it as a house of grief. their family weathered so many tragedies: the uncle she never met who died at six years of age when he choked on his own sickness; another uncle with autism who was sent away to live in a provincial facility for a decade that traumatized him; a young aunt who committed suicide before the age of thirty; a grandfather who slowly eroded from parkinson’s; a grandmother who died of a sudden heart attack. in the dream i was standing in the l-shaped living and dining room. there were windows along the exterior walls, but they were closed, covered with the panels of two curtains, one crimson, the other onyx. i stood in the dream dragging my eyes across pieces of a life that didn’t belong to me—photographs and tchotchkes, books and furniture. i could see the light outside attempt to permeate the curtains, it cast a reddish glow through the filter of fabric. and at that moment i pushed aside every panel, raised the window sashes to let the breeze in. before i awoke, i watched the curtains billow and rise: the sails of a ship catching god’s breath. 220119 what's it to you? who go blather from