Special occasions

I was playing hungry
hungry hippos
when my grandmother died
with a flash of d?a vu
in a house I had never been in
before or since

and when I got home
my father was in
his usual place
at the head of the table
long after dinner should have ended
and he was wearing
his red wet eyes
that he brought out only
on very special occasions
like the day we all came home
to find Gustave
lime-green belly skyward
on the bottom
of his cage