There is a garage
And there is no garage
Only that I rarely go in
Or think of it or dream of it
Or park in it or dwell in it
Or combine tea or drive the combine
or the tractor.
I refuse to drive the chain saw
Or become a punchline again.
“Thank God Moonbeam was on the plane.”
That sort of thing. That sort of thinking.
The garage stares at me as a manifestation
With its unpacked boxes and tools strung about
And drawers that I paid too much for at Sears.
“It’s like this cheese here.”
“What cheese where? I don’t see any—”
“S’imaginary, but can’t you taste it?”
The wonders in the drawers, the winds,
The bake, a dream of truth and undiscovered realms
That follow behind my arched and moving arms
Like swirls hourglass and up air.
Tower, back stairs, lit
With sconces that I picked out myself.
Adult
Memories
Jewels and Jafars. There’s a Grand Vizier around here somewhere,
A search for tomorrow and tomorrow’s memories
Air of dust, of my father’s cigars, of my grandfather’s
Ancient tools and photos and a chair with no place in the main house.
Out here, it seems a memory of a couch and kitchen.
This is real, this space, this sawdust,
These dessicated spider sacs and my intentions to sweep them.
What power in the new mower! A clean Husqvarna and fresh gas. Is it laughing? Thrill in its new home and the usurpation of the pickup’s protected space. The weeds won’t know what hit them. The cheese won’t know what lit them on fire.
There is too much. I will never finish this job that fell to me from my ancestors. I can find the tools I need if no one else enters but I lie to myself about that.
There is a cave
And there is no cave
Only that I rarely go in
Or think of it or dream of it
The waves come in, carrying their small fishes.
Their lost treasures belie a thousand dreams of gold
memory doubloons
Resting in red Sears drawers
By turtles, turbans, and turbines,
Mallets with the heads off and tea boxes storing nails. I stick
My finger into a box of nails
And swirl it, gently so’s I don’t get pricked,
Wondering the source of so much metal.
Grandfather? One of my many exes? Dad’s basement workshop with the drill press that was taller than me?
It was too heavy to move.
We couldn’t’ keep everything. My brother and me, we took what we could
But steeled ourselves to the loss of beloved tools and treasures
Washing ashore right now
Kissed by stripey fishes
My garage is my mother’s castle in Scotland,
Fluted drinks and pegboard gestures bend time.