The Poetry Marathon

Hour Five

Brother Stephen

 

I loved the boy who tore down my treehouse,

so I didn’t tell him to stop. I just climbed down

and let the destruction happen because

he was drunk, and I was a fatalist

and believed then, as I do now

that all good things must come to an end.

 

It wasn’t my treehouse. It belonged to the town.

It belonged to the spirit of every teenager

who ever needed a place in an uncut swathe of forest

on unparceled land, to sit and stare quietly

or hide from the crowd in greenleaf peace

or let the crowd hide them.

 

Before, when days turned early to cold and dark

we found an old fender buried in the ferns

used it as a hearth, gathered sticks and paper,

and built a fire in the treehouse.

Floating faces in the glowing light, sparks flying to heaven

and there was the Boy I Loved laughing

when I griped about how my folks spent my college money.

Yeah, it was kind of funny.

 

He’s not the one I miss. Looking back

on that crowd around the fire, I see my Brother

from Another Mother, My Best Friend’s Boyfriend, he was the one

who helped me out of the tree as the Boy I Loved ripped it down around me.

He held out his hand, again and again, when love got drunk

and ripped the world down around me.

 

Last time I saw him , he was in a nest of wires

and bottles and tubes and machines that go “ping!”

Cancer slowed him down long enough for me to catch up to him.

Surprise, A Boy I Loved had just wrecked my world, but I held out my hand this time

asking him please, take it, lean on me, while it all falls down.

So far, he has not taken it.

 

I was hoping, so hoping, like Hansel and Gretel,

We could find our way out of these woods together.

ballet barre

seeking perfection
making sacrifices (avoiding food and boys)
but i was a soloist … we toured
We made it look easy
Hiding our bloody feet and calloused souls

the dance studio was my home
Prepping to enjoy my time on stage

years later,
only a twinge of self-criticism when attending the ballet
yet i still get complimented on my legs

Stinky Park

That’s what we always called it.
Sure, we lived near the water treatment facility,
but we didn’t FEEL like
people who lived near the water treatment facility.

It was mostly a place for kisses.
Young, sweaty kisses and cheap cologne and
prayers to God about pregnancy after the first time
even though she didn’t and I didn’t.

I almost bit off my tongue while sledding there
with my brother and sister. I remember trudging back home
the same way I remember so many other things,
which is to say not at all.

I went back here and there over the years,
like the time we played Frisbee after rehab.
I even showed my kids around,
though they didn’t seem to feel the lingering magic.

Today I searched it on Google Earth,
but I couldn’t see the details through the trees.
Still, I’m sure we’re there on the swings,
or slumped against the handball wall no one ever used.

Hour 5: The Hayloft

The Hayloft

We entered the barn
though grandpa’s workroom
smelling strongly of engine oil
Then past the old milking stanchions
empty from before I could remember
Finally, ultimately, up the ladder
Made of wide boards and
attached to the end of a feedbox
Difficult to maneuver and scary
Sometimes I couldn’t make it
Especially the awkward step at the top
a right angle from ladder to loft

Once there
the wide expanse of the loft was freeing
the roof arching high above our heads
with only small amounts of hay
and a lingering smell of dust
impeding our play
When my mother was young
she and her brothers and sisters
played basketball in the echoing space
But now the floor
was a minefield of warped boards,
missing planks, and holes
to watch for and carefully ease around
a fear of heights growing in me

At the end of the hayloft
the space was open
to trucks and equipment stored below
Above hung a rope
with one large knot
If you weren’t a scaredy-cat
you grabbed the rope
and swung out over the open space
trusting the brothers and cousins
to catch you upon your return
I did this
but not often
I preferred to watch
the braver kids
who whooped and yelled
and swung with abandoned
confidently

The barn still stands
but the grandparents are gone
And who knows how many
holes have widened
in the wide plank floor
Or if the rope
still dangles over
a vast empty space

Simple Breaths

It was simple,
A breath,
And I slipped from now to then,
And I saw your face again,
And your face remotely yours,
As we stood before the doors…

It was simple,
A breath,
My voice catching on the past,
My voice catching on the pain,
And I saw your eyes again,
And the feeling grown, fondness at last.

It was simple,
A breath,
Two friends holding hands, at last,
Two hearts still held from the past:
I found myself, now, kissing you,
Kissed in ways I never knew.

It was simple,
A breath,
All the time, it would not cease,
Two hearts yearning for release,
Seeking confirmation this was real,
Two souls seeking love to heal.

It was simple,
A breath,
And your arms around me stayed;
On your chest, my fingers splayed…
Must it always go this way?
Must I await for days and days…?

It was simple,
A breath,
I don’t want to watch this death,
Don’t want to bear another flight
When such simplicity feels right,
Can’t switch off this feeling like a light…

It was simple,
A breath,
A needed breath, no wasted time,
And I was yours and you were mine…
Please give simplicity its due;
It’s only me and only you….

It was simple,
A simple breath….

Wild Strawberries and a Conditional Statement

There is nothing wild anymore,
nothing sweet or real or free.
God gave me wild strawberries
I ate until my lips were red.

The crawdads don’t live here now.
No mounded holes, no hidden home.
The old men with their whiskey bottles
and their sticks have all gone home.

The children must be kept indoors,
their forts torn down, their fields mown short.
The authorities will provide sterility, safety,
and large strawberries without flavor.

If: wildness is danger
If: berries are not sweet
If: God is not real
Then: this place is no longer my home

Hour 5–Soot

The smell I remember:

It smelled like what it was

a burned down bowling alley

hauled to our end of town

dumped at the edge of the swamp

behind our grade school

blackened possibilities

bursting in all directions

We scavenged like hungry avengers

amazed at these abandoned treasures

ours for the snatching

Oh Fortune!

Oh Providence!

A crumpled candy machine

full of melted goo

yielded coins

Bowling pins

scorched

Black balls

valiant casualties

Wonders unimaginable

plastic in fantastic shapes

A drinking fountain!

We pulled out its electric motor and hauled it home

It ran

and once again

a smidgen of

Post Bowling alley

came back to life

humming

 

 

 

 

Suffocation

At 8:37am last Tuesday, I smelled
the end of summer. It promised
to leave with lightning this year,
promised more rain. I believe.
I haven’t met a season I didn’t love,
that didn’t fill my lungs and keep
my heart beating. Last year, fall
promised to stay longer, my dearest friend.
Winter, though abrupt and often abrasive,
has apologized to me countless times
with quietly grey skies. Spring
is my little sister, a hen under one arm
and a handful of azaleas, crown of wisteria.
But summer brings the rain,
brings the storms, brings thunder.
Summer stews hurricanes and simmers
my skin, covers me in English ivy
so thick I can’t breathe.

5.

There should be a place you could walk to

When you’re young.

A place with hills, gauntlets for the bike with one speed (as fast as your legs can move it)
and one brake (better hope the wires don’t snap).

Hills that are narrow and paved from a time when gas was cheaper,

and are cracked and split by roots older than the lake on the next block

that was filled with buckets of some local government (can you swim to the dock?)

I learned to sail on that lake. I learned confidence on that lake.

But on those hills…

Easing off the brakes…

On those hills, I was Achilles.

adriatic memories – #5

we were so young, one of us petulant in the extreme
refusing to remain in the car backing downhill, or
picking at food offered with nothing but reproof

the other two of us younger still not yet teens,
entranced by the smells at corners we named
on our daily walks to the sea – lavender, beer

and urine – little understanding the import
perhaps, but nonetheless loving the feel
of the exotic. It was an other world for us both,

getting sun poisoning and needing to stay indoors
under cool sheets in the dark for long hours
while her older sister went about her day

alone; or the time we huddled together
to watch “Some Like it Hot” from the stone-edged
window of the hall’s only bathroom, much to the outrage

of their parents and other guests; and how
could I forget the tortured hot-sun march
uphill under the father’s strict glare

while we chanted COLD – JUICY – PEACHES
both to keep us motivated and remind us
what awaited at the greatly anticipated end

of the climb. This was summer, early 60’s, on the island
of Hvar off Split (then Yugoslavia), with family
friends (German) and us two younger girls

so innocent. Who would have known then
that another decade or so hence I’d revisit
the same town with a different companion,

from whom I split over disagreements
concerning food, travel and lodging,
the prevailing custom being to choose,

on arrival by bus or train, the most appealing
person offering a bed for the night. Not much to go on
but proximity, since  bags were on us.

I spent two nights with a grandmother
who got up every hour to use her bedpan;
and another with folks I met along the way

still too young in my 20’s to understand
what was before me, let alone within; and now
nothing of that time or place is left to return to

but a handful of memories newly prompted
to which I shall gratefully return.

swb