Linda Pastan: "Possibilities"

Today I drove past a house
we almost bought and heard
through the open window music

made by some other family.
We don't make music ourselves, in fact
we define our differences

by what we listen to.
And what we mean by family
has changed since then

as we grew larger then smaller again
in ways we knew would happen
and yet didn't expect.

Each choice is a winnowing,
and sometimes at night I hear
all the possibilities creak open

and shut like screendoors
in the wind,
making an almost musical

accompaniment
to what I know
of love and history.



"Possibilities" by Linda Pastan, from Heroes in Disguise. © W. W. Norton & Company, 1991.

Art credit: "Screen Door, 2013," photograph by Cig Harvey.