Sheffer Crossword Puzzle Poem Draft

Did you go to Qwest Field to see the Dalai Lama?
My daughter went, wore her reporter pin.
He didn't seem so daunted by his lofty role
A bunch of people bathed in his mystique
dithered on and on the radio as I drove to work
through the Montlake avenue dark with crows
mysterious why they weight the phone lines,
cluster on the lawns across from St. Demetrious,
past the disheveled house, woman in duster
on the porch, ripped shade pasted to an upstairs
window. The Lama has left but not the crows.
The stair railing to her door bows outwards under
a rope of English ivy thick as a man's forearm.
What was once the yard bristles with too much
leggy foliage. Maple branches brush the front
windows. Inside the blinds sag slaunchwise.
Did she have children? When did her husband die?
I imagine newspapers clutter the front room,
discolored Asian art behind smudged glass,
musty smell of unwashed clothes, plates piled
in the chipped porcelain sink. Clutter softens
echoes between the night rooms, raccoon thumps,
mouse scritching under eaves. Who will embrace
us when we have shrunk so far away? No more
mama, lama, priest or lover to hear us shuffle
the stuffed hall, slippers slogging the rain dark
rug under the gap where the maple root sank
into the moss rotted roof, how long ago?

I've seen some hot hot blazes
come down to smoke and ash

In a movie, the father reads to his little girl,
my husband leans in, remember little girls?
birdseed under bare feet in the bathroom,
red cedar hamster bedding, easter bunny,
dressers and the dryer stuffed with small
bright clothes - how many housecat life times
until my fleshy upper arm shivers in dim light
faded pastel housecoat with ripped piping
hanging from the half sleeve as I fluster
over the rusty latch of the torn screen door.