Bacon

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Mother by the stove,
dark hair cropped and pincurled.
one hand on her back
another holding the flipper,
laughing and tapping one long
bare foot to the swing of Armstrong;
or Father, leaning in on the eggs,
grinning as Mother dances away,
across the linoleum,
around the sectional couch.
It's bacon that brings us back
to this room, to watch from the stairwell.
I smelled it this morning
standing in an alleyway.
And if I reach out 
to touch the wood siding,
if I bend to pick up a smooth stone,
if i look up to see a gull wheeling,
it's no longer
the end of the world.