I honestly can’t remember the summer sun in grandma’s
backyard but I recall the swing brushing the gooseberry bushes even though I
still don’t know the shape or tangy pop of the berries. Who knows what
fragments of light crossed that upstairs Spanish painting terrifying me into
bed until sunrise? I can’t remember the face but I know the rounded edge of hat
and bag of candy for the girl he’d never see again.
I can’t remember the faces of the babas in line with us.
Interlopers we stood in the snow eating their language while reading the maps
of the past in their eyes. Stories blended together in our bewilderment at
lives that we could not have endured and would leave in ten months. They’ve
probably perished since, but not I. Is
that true?
I can’t remember the farm wall color but the smell of cattle
and electric fences danced through the window and called for discovery: kittens
in the barn – blind wet furies hooked into childhood’s hands and memory. A
little fur on the cookies didn’t hurt and who wandered down to the one room
school with me? Abandonment and age scarred the board and discarded books. A
potbellied stove warmed spiders’ nests.
I can’t remember my aunt’s odd cat named a Japanese name and
eating cheese from a toothpick at Christmastime. Soft, elusive, peering from the almost
upstairs – what of me remains with you?
I can’t remember the old farm where the woman lopped off the
chicken’s head and it actually ran around before collapsing. A heap of edible death near the marigolds.
Perhaps we made stew or chicken pie? The bloodstain remained for weeks, not so
the food.
I can’t remember all those beers and shots of laughter with
friends, buying our way to a fake joy that should have never been attempted in
the first place. What was I trying to prove the night I smoked that first
cigarette and threw up?
I can’t remember the kneeling moment or the taste of the
three tier cake, but sickly sweet recalls the blows and bruises and
unfairness. What does it say about me
that I remember no kindness but all the dinners of hardship and contempt? Scars hidden can be denied.
I can’t remember the Barbies and Monopolies and Go Fishes
and Kick the Cans. The twilight of
summer that shone in your firefly eyes.
Licorice smiles and watermelon breath after
supper, and did anyone like pigs as much as you? Too much pink escapes me now
and I feel something gained despite loss.
Leaf houses turn snow forts that we seal by pouring hot water across the
walls in frozen sticky red mittens.
I can’t remember the call of the creek but crystal feelings
sparkled hope mixed with breeze and salted sunshine. Something.
Someone. Out there waiting to stumble
across me and I waited for that embrace that never came, didn’t I?
I can’t remember the copulation and the birth is
blurry. Undefined then suddenly
manifest. The shapes of your cries still
hang in the air as your paintings on the walls.
Joy anticipated had no disappointment, but shifted expectations speak
loudly while childhoods now past whisper conspiracies of guilt and regret from
the corners. Is it possible to hold on
and release?
I can’t remember the crafts and shared knowledge little to
big. Your made up language and the green
smiling alligator that no one knew.
Robbing the bank on doubles. How
about chocolate eating in the living room.
Did Mom ever catch you?
I can’t remember the reasons, but I remember the stitches. A fall on refrozen ice or too soft chin on a
too hard floor or trying to fly from a desk chair? Indelible souvenirs of the
invincible imagination – moments fleeing into small history.
I can’t remember becoming mom’s age. I can’t remember mom becoming grandma’s age.
The fields of time and hamburgers along this path extend beyond imagination.
Keeping dreams and hand holds and goodnights while pushing the cry-stained
blankets farther away creates comfort of a sort. Who knew that this was a ball
of colored yarn tangled beyond recognition? Trying to sort it out will reveal
hidden nettles and unspeakable softness.
Who snarled this so impossibly? I can’t remember. Maybe it was me.
