i threw away the last key, to
the last house
where i was a child
this morning, on the way to coffee.
it said DAD in messy block print
scratched with a pin in the eighties
though i don't remember pressing down
or metal scraping metal.

i recall my mother saying
that house felt like home
with its aquamarine walls
brown linoleum kitchen floor
and it wasn’t the suburbs.
also, the basement was large enough
for the kennel she had always wanted
(which we built – i soaked white paint out of my hair for hours)
and the barn at the back, with two acres of fields, could hold a horse
and a rhubarb patch.

there was a swing set in the front yard,
between two giant evergreens,
under the maple tree.
dad and i camped beside it once,
his orange tent and polar sleeping bag
smelled like sweat, and smoke.
cold in the night, i ran
inside to my bed,
angry with him for my shivering and the hard ground.
in the morning, we cooked breakfast on the driveway
and dug a hole to find water
which he boiled, to make it safe
while he explained physics
over our front yard camp fire.
of course, i thought it silly
there was a tap and a stove inside
and digging holes in the driveway
would surely cause yelling later,

because everything was a fight, then.
in the near-dark, when they had given up
hushed shouting, and waiting for my bed time
i peered around the corner at the end of the hall,
in my blue one-piece sleeper with the padded feet
while they swore at each other in the living room
oblivious to my small shadow slinking to bed
or my screams of shut up, when i was tired of the noise.
it took them two more years to give up
before they asked me to choose between them.
mom and i moved to my best friend’s father’s house
down the road, where she slept on the couch for a week, for show
while my father worked two jobs to pay $800 a month in child support,
tore down the kennels, and painted all of the walls white.

i don’t remember pressing down
or metal scraping metal,
just the sharp sound of the key
to the last house where i was a child
hitting the bottom of an empty garbage bin
in the tunnel under york street, sixteen years later
on the way to buy coffee and a scone
on a monday.