In my dreams my daughter is small again.

We are living in the old farmhouse her father

and I bought years ago.  He has moved in all the old

furniture: the heavy couch, the tables with intricate

twisting legs that take and take and take

my empty space.  He stakes his claim: the cold

hard floors hidden by his mother’s rug, fraying

at the edges; the chairs, the television, blaring obscenities;

the accumulated garbage of his life.  Inside I simmer,

ready to blow, our daughter looking on

in the basement dark.