When the house is empty, the rooms fill with his voice, drifting in like air conditioning. Walk to the corner of the street, pick up an orange. He is singing his life. He sang when I was a child to soothe me back to sleep. I used to watch the night light flicker, his silhouette resting against the beige burlap drapes as he pulled on his trousers. The streets are good. The orange sweet. The sun wasn't up yet, but it didn't matter— he was going blind, could only seethe unsettled blur of cups and counter on the days he worked. I've seen the half dollar stuck between his teeth, watched them close the bronze casket lined with wool blankets, the black satin wreath and paper money burning into the afterlife. Now, his picture is suspended in the corner of the dining room, smiling over the altar. His blind eyes watching over our every meal. When the house is empty, I can hear the wood creak beneath the rug, his heavy footsteps, the slap and shuffleof leather slippers sticking to tile, when he walks into the kitchen. The streets are good. The orange sweet. I wonder when it will pass, when I will stop sitting up alone at night to keep this old man around me, wanting his song, his voice to stretch into every empty room I walk through, wanting him to finally see me when he sings.
Published in Cream City Review.
© Priscilla Lee. All rights reserved.