If wish you could come closer,

could hear my whispers, my dreams—

you’ve told us all your life you wanted

to be an architect but couldn’t afford school,

so now let me tell you mine,

my wish not to be a mother,

not to make comfort food every day all day,

my dream, so secret I told no one—

it wasn’t the diner job I undertook

when you complained about the bills

before the kids, and then after they left home

I kept working around the house,

and weren’t your shirts all ironed,

your pants perfectly creased? So now, my dear,

my dream—

you love me, right? Will help me fulfill it?

But, oh, you can’t respond, can’t hear me

for all the dirt and coffin walls between us.