We splinter like sun in the kitchen window, fractalize
into ever smaller versions of our worries. Start with storms
that dump oceans all at once, straight line winds that
fell sycamore trees, bees with no nectar, birds without worms.
Wait. Go back to the top and fit our children into the sentence
that begins “Start.” Their bodies, their hearts. How
they intersect with this aching world. How they need new
clothes, money for bus passes, grilled cheese for lunch.
The mice we caught in the trap downstairs. The way
the ceiling has started to crack and how we ignore it and pretend.
/
How we ignore it and pretend we’re not cracking, beautifully,
like driveway mud in drought. We snake the drain
and force hose water down, calculating how much it can take.
Day after day of beating-down heat traps us, quiet, inside
the house. We keep it too cold and can only stay in for so
long before stepping out onto the porch to warm up. As
in winter when the freeze-thaw cycle crumbled our
concrete Mary in the garden. Like the rusted
grill, like the patio cushions sun bleached and thin,
we should have brought her in.
/
We should have brought her in, but on the other hand,
we like her frayed and rangy devotion. She’s messy
and worn like we are. Days we embrace it, say maximalist,
say catholic. Say whimsy. Days we drive to Lowe’s for spackle
and paint, buy a new sharp tool to toss in the shed. Something
got into the garbage again. Something’s snatching
goldfish from the pond, chomping the dahlias, breaking
into the box of birdseed we keep by the potting
bench. Something–we can hear it scratching
all night–has taken up house in the walls.
/
Night has taken up house in the walls. Night with no
stars, just streaming T.V. and a regular moon. Night starts
comically soon, our children tease, as we tuck ourselves
in under sunlight. Night never lasts long enough. Thunder booms
above, waking the bulldog from the snoring deep, thus waking us
from the sweaty humidity of a someplace else dream. Doesn’t it seem
like we should know how to make the bed with cooler sheets?
Bamboo or muslin. Something eco-luxe. One intrepid foot stuck outside
the down duvet. Let’s go back to Lowes and grab that fan–
the one that blew a fine chilled mist over everything.
/
A fine chilled mist blows over everything we’ve saved
from the dead rack at Lowes. We each take a side
of the garden and spend the hour after dinner drenching
perennials we pray will bounce back with our care. Usually
they do. We let the lawn grow too high and the grass
fills with ticks, balds in yellow patches where the dogs piss.
But look at the apple trees heavy with fruit after last
year’s empty branches. They weren’t our choice, we just
found them here. We’ve done nothing to help them.
They just grow as they do in their time and we let them.
/
They just grow as they do in their time and we let them
know we are here. Like yesterday when she locked herself
out of the house and we had to cut short the workday
to help her. How our irritation swelled on the drive home. Where
is your lanyard? How can you leave the house without your keys?
Yesterday in Texas a river overspilled its banks in a flash, flooded out
acres of land in the dark. Dozens of camp girls washed away
in their sleep. And their parents… No. Go back and fit our daughter in,
make the sentence say how can we watch you leave the house
when fear forces, as water, into every parched and swollen cell?
/
Every parched and swollen cell fears water, its knife edge,
or what we do. Beauty, it would seem, insists. And there go
our kids. To work now or out with friends, their lives just
about to burst open, bloom. We want them to love home
and we want them to happily go. How we’ve become parent-
cliches. How Facebook memories make us weep. We tuck
some of our sadness like seeds into envelopes, mail them
to friends from our past. The patio’s open but we never
stopped keeping six feet of distance. The garden is gorgeous
but we’ve gotten used to being alone.
/
We’ve gotten used to being alone and some days
it‘s all that we want. We wince to remember
indiscretions, prefer to hide behind blinds, out of view
from passersby on the street. But we like that they thank
us for flowers. We tell them it’s our pleasure
and mean it. It’s quiet here and we’ve hung bird feeders
and deep-toned chimes, crystals that spin and glint
in afternoon sun. We feed corn to the squirrels
and let the rabbits have the raspberries.
We’re not old and we’re not young.
/
We’re not old and we’re not young, and we’ve never
believed anything more deeply. Our devotion to it is whole
and maybe holy. We practice slowness, remind
ourselves about the breath. Often, we even feel content.
From the porch in the morning, we see green vines,
pink blossoms, the bold red stop sign on the corner–
emblems of all we’ve mangled or mastered or contained.
Another house, another day. A new set of crumbling
steps. Morning Glories. Coffee. The dogs we love and
a long marriage. And now, look–it’s raining again.
