The brick outside the washed leaf and swirl molding
Into the stoop
Of the past
And memories,
Not wisdom nor regrets nor snow
Although hallelujah it snowed
And judgment
Of feet up on the couch
At the end of the day or the lifetime or the snowfall,
Without fried or catered,
Friday’s pizza brings peace.
Or a foil
To the earth’s surface
A fall
To the earth’s handshake,
Where reverie is judged by a council of peers
Which is a story for another saying
And there was no you but there was a different you
Yet one of the fellows
Before that was another brick, this one modern and squat
With grey siding and room for two cars and two more cars
And the paint was mine because the retirees had cared more for the hydrangea
Than the insides, the guts
décor is winding, two halves
An office and the kitchen where I passed out enroute, Zuzu looking concerned,
This one Floridian and situated that one cold and Pennsylvanian,
A third excised from Jacksonville,
The child of transplant, of mountain seen,
The East is a loop, the base tangent to the Gulf,
The peak touches snow,
And Zach who put together shows and Mike who judged him.
The kitchen there was yellow, and I’ve owned two yellow houses since,
Old and new,
And its floor mashed colored gumdrops of gold and cream and brown and the 1970’s.
We loved it there, that was before,
Did you know they make portable dishwashers? I used it twice and then sold the house.
This morning when I asked her twice to turn the light off and brush and she said the knots
Regenerate after five seconds, I was impressed but
Remembered Link with three hearts left and told her to relax but she jerks progressively the longer I brush it like the knots assimilate into a king rat. You’d expect gratitude instead of
Grunts and complaints and whining the whole set I think she is more impressed to be
Dropped by Corvette than pickup truck
Which is a follow on to driving in a dream which is easier than it looks but there is going to be an impossible goal or destination any time and at some point the car is gone just like a real car a trade-in a Subaru. I’m told she pushed back at pickup said what are you doing here already but Charlie was so good and helping me out that he deserved a trip to R & R and she is that child that loves oysters which I never met until I washed dishes at The Log Cabin and opened that steamer cavern washer with the giant handle. Get in the car they had the truck which I left them to be nice because I am nice too like the little people in The Grinch.
It’s red we are regular poor and I will never get take out from Rock and Roll Sushi in Jubilee Center again because I asked for three rangoons which somehow equaled fifteen according to the math of rock and roll so she ate maybe half of one they are still in the fridge with their bubbly fried texture and creamy inside like no cake
Which is just to say
All the new books are Warriors series she eats them alive and I admit I read one when she was a widget.
Except the brick was then and now there is stucco but imitation ridiculously yellow and the Christmas tree before last was from China with both LED’s and fiber optics like earlier this morning I remembered a dream of Siddhary’s house and the optics toy in their socket that I would touch and watch the colors swirl like the cake batter I made last week before it got all mixed
if I walk around my town now there is no town
What is a suburb there is a gravel road that I pay for myself with the neighbors their gate is locked and I used to know the code but not anymore, although I was not the one who blabbed it outside the
Chosen few, who, like Norman, who does not exist yet but is hoped for,
And questioning best use of my time like the crops are hoped for and a single melon plant not the green kind the other that I never know its name but you knock on it for freshness. The neighbors are close enough that I hear their car doors slam
And they are moving her name is Melissa is it because I moved in
Maybe I lowered her property value which means she should sit not sell like in the dream
Where I walk up Cayden Circle but I do not turn into the drive
And my mailbox is still yellow but not the same shape that took six months
To choose
To speak to allow the tone to speak to you more than my words
That would be fair although you claim otherwise and state
We are going down a path not a dream one and not a real one
But nonetheless not a spiral just a path
If I push you I might confront the end of it and nobody especially her wants that
Do you want that?
We recline here, too and it is better and the food is better more cooked at home than Pagannini’s on the corner in Doylestown the last time I ate carpaccio I put sliced parmesan on top Here oysters
Are all the rage and despite what Southerners think grits are absolutely everywhere so
Stop expecting them to not know sweet tea and such and reminds me of the fable of the water bag with a hole in the bottom that caused flowers to bloom along the path back to the bungalow and others of them are watching Eyes on the Prize to learn about segregation and two sets of bathrooms and I wonder if there is a percentage that rebels even now and I guard my facial expression to placidity to offend absolutely no one but then say she or he instead of he or she as a token effort tempered by knowing my audience and this morning I told the children to question everything and asked them what they thought they meant and who records paper but Silas yelled every twenty seconds a third of my brain was engaged in keeping him controlled with please no yelling, Silas and Willow sat there sweetly and I wonder if she got anything or how she felt about him or the video.
Not though
We say sweetie and mean it and recline here too but larks what luck if I see the new neighbor I Will be sure to say high I might say I am glad the others are moving maybe because of the new
Neighbor and not me because their two dogs
Always run out
At me when I jog really walk by that house they are old and just going through the motions the
Way that the other neighbors are not as old and they seem to have a lot of the same goals as me
Like avocadoes Creamy
Also Lemonades but I did not bring the cookies that I promised to the new neighbor when I found out the next day her name is Sarah because I sold those cookies but Evie and I stopped by to introduce ourselves, which confused everything this morning because Honor Bell that is his real name said Good morning, Sarah to me to nod to I was filling in for Sarah at church today but I must have looked blank because how did Honor Bell know about my new neighbor Sarah it was a concatenation of Sarahs with his arms expanding away from his peace symbol necklace to mock my surprise it stood for nuclear disarmament before it just meant peace and my unquick uptake especially so later tonight if I go to another Sarah’s to drop off cookie money and pick up the deposit because I can get to the bank during the workday and she will be across the bay
Working, I think, in a bank
If I counted the Sarahs since day one including dream Sarahs and my one-semester roommate Sara with no h, I might divine the frequency that inhabitants of rocky, icy Trappist-1c are monitoring eagerly with their noodly appendages, Earth Earth why don’t you call Christopher Walken on the psychic network they are just waiting for us and we may be chili to them
Their tiny sun will be chilly to us
And the plants in my atrium some are still seedlings and Evie has the day off tomorrow but I need to write this poem so I will instruct her to plant them in the last garden section and then crack open those watercolors and see how long she keeps her shoes on and then remember it is supposed to rain tomorrow so much for that melon, black beans, green beans and onion
Of them all I have highest hopes for the onion
Apply that to cooking as well but only if they are cooked I recommend butter without the fats because then I crank it to 2.6 without it browning there is that fig which is the most glorious, outshining the apple trees that came home the same day and might have given up their apple ghosts but the fig came back from the freeze all fronds and glory like a show girl tree maybe it will share the secrets of its success with the other fig in the pot in the atrium that looks like it has never had a leaf.
More than this I think I should call so many but I vacuum instead or at least a handwritten note to say hey I live here and these are the people you met my daughter once but I am still here and then I realize that I have not asked how Cassie is doing how self-centered of me is the once-a-quarter aerial yoga helping anything
Grow in the garden area with the asparagus
That I put there before I read that they take years to give a crop but maybe Evie will take that as her project and give the love they need to supply asparagi for one dinner
Four per week is steady-state for us due to school and basketball and Charlie’s school and Girl Scouts and one of those is always pizza on Fridays so can I say that I love to cook I do love owning a red refrigerator because as an American and I ask do you know that I love you and I get umm-hmmmm as a response and right now they are together allowing me this precious time for a walk and a nap and a poem and thoughts that circle back to them and gratitude and hopes and waking. Last night
Was an opportunity
I skipped
The Superman Complex of taking things for granted and then had to explain myself in my sleep self and resolve too so this evening I will give the time and the time and appreciate
A holiday.