If I remember too much

Its early morning erev shabbos
Lately a train whistle blows not far from here, its a sad recall
of inexplicable things, people gone forever
...leaving Dad alone Saturday mornings for those summer trips with Ma to Jersey, smelling sun on my arms, eating under the grape arbor, aunties bickering while stirring tomato sauce, stomach tightening on the trip home thinking, how much has he had to drink and what will we hear...how long will it take me to get him into bed
...the smells in 770, always seemed to be the scent of challah, almost a vanilla mixed with siddurim and clean clothes, maybe that's what hope is or faith..that clean scent of pure anticipation of speaking to Hashem, the always ending and beginning
defining my life by the week beginning wednesdays preparing for shabbos, washing cleaning shopping, waiting for dough to rise, cakes to cool, making shabbos tea parties for the kids shalashudes, the sudden abruptness of havdalah, the clean up of the peacefulness to endure another week of...waiting for things to get better
The loneliness always a lonely
solitary flicker, like a moth in my throat,
fluttering as if caught helpless against a vast screen and that train whistle blows
and blows a heedless recounting of all that's been lost,
tearing the wings off words with tears