Pay no mind to the muggy air sitting on the window sill,
The mold growing under the kitchen sink, finches chirping
On the feeder or the decades-old rice piled inside the sugar bowl.
Do not let it creep into your brain, filling crevices you swore
You’d never squeeze into again.
Pay no mind when that pompous air hops off the window sill,
Sits on your lap, plays with your hair and blows its foul breath
In your face. It intrudes on your conversation about sweaters
Purchased for a dollar at flea markets, French cheeses
And dead or dying relatives.
Pay no mind when your grandmother exhausts her mental rolodex
And it starts rocking anxiously, back and forth on your lap.
As you move into the living room, catch the framed photos it swipes
Off the end tables. Preserve images of your mother when she was
Young, vibrant, warm.
Pay no mind to documents stuffed in a cardboard envelope on the couch.
When that cruel air billows the pages, unearthing post-its, letters,
An email you didn’t know existed between your mother and grandmother
About you, do not cry at the revelations you find
In the twenty-seventh paragraph.
But on the off chance that you do, try to heed those three useless words
Your grandmother chanted throughout the day. And when that does no good
Re-read and breathe your mother’s seething Times New Roman
About how your life has remained as unimpressive at age twenty
As at birth, age four, age seventeen.
When the air tires of this exhausting game, scurrying like a rat out the window,
Remember that every generation critiques the next. Someone always leaves
The window open, and that stupid air will always blow through
Your grandmother’s house and every other place you go. For gusts like these
Rush fiercely, unexpectedly through our lives and leave only the aftermath.