there was a three-story gray house at the
corner of elm and lakeshore. the row of
mailboxes in front for the folks up the hill
big wraparound deck built at the second floor
cold cream colored tile in the kitchen
they caught me hiding beneath the
dinner table eating butter straight from
the tub with a silver soup spoon

we loved the spiral staircase in the far corner
of the kitchen leading up from the cold to the
spongey new carpeted living room, squishing the
fabric between our tiny toes and climbing over
the yellow crushed velvet love seat scene of
the crime time I felt off it and broke my arm
I fell off a wooden chair in the kitchen years
before, a tiny cast on my one year old left arm
I'd fall off a neighbor's trampoline years later,
third time's a charm, this time broke something
in my shoulder, and sometime afterward in
the fourth grade maybe, was the last year in the
big gray house, yes, it was the year of the
rollerblades for turning ten and my mouth
bled and bled and bled in the long car ride
to concord to see the picture of my grandpa
on the wall and wish he could be my doctor
like he had been everyone else's they said
they felt better as soon as they walked into
his basement office in the big white house
with the black shutters and the christmas
wreath still up, skiers etched into gimlet
glasses, quiet sadness sketched into the
walls, i think he must have had the gift
of presence, perhaps the ministry of it,
even, but i only remember stories i heard
so much i think i recreated them as memories

maybe it was the summertime when we moved
down the hill, i can't remember
i remember my sister kicking the for sale sign
with S O L D in big red letters across the name
of our real estate agent's name and telephone number
she'd give it one big kick every day on the walk home from school
until one day it fell over and no one picked it back up
i can't remember what else though
i can't remember much of being little at all

but there was tea
yes, tea! mama brought us tea on the side of the house she called
her english garden, usually after she put us through the ordeal of her
hair cuts in the front of the house under the deck, watching john swing
golden locks freely flying about, safe from her old metal scissors and
worried hands messing about with our gnarled and twisted locks
two times to the hair salon with brushes stuck at the nape of our necks
and afterward we little girls were taught to separate our hair into two halves
well-brushed after a bath, and twist the sections into two identical braids
each night before going to bed, to keep ourselves and our mama tear and tangle free
braids worked better than fancy shampoos with false promises
overtime our hair grew more and more wild and untamable, but still we persisted in the
nightly ritual of brushing and braiding and braiding and brushing
but flossing was never as highly enforced

the english garden was never forced to endure detangling; it rejoiced
in reckless abandonment of regular tending, ivy cascaded down the side of the house, lilacs grew where they pleased, when they pleased, and if they pleased, at all.
we sat and sipped, quiet after the tension of mama's brush pulling our heads and necks
and little shoulders, relieved that the haircut was finished and wouldn't have to be seen to
again for a good long while. we pretended our biscuits were crumpets and
i always wondered why mama seemed sad but also seemed glowing as she
watched us, her girls, and sometimes johnny too if they had their fill of swinging,
sipping tea and having a little conversation, among the weeds and pansies

after the rollerblading fall and once my teeth grew back i was older
i asked mama if I could make my own tea in the mornings when
she was leaving before work before i awoke, and she agreed
each morning that spring after i made a cup of english breakfast tea,
two splashes of two percent milk, two spoonfulls sugar,
always missing the clumps they had at the beautiful restaurants
in london that christmas, toes cold in my slippers on the cream-filled floor I
crept to spy on the garden and see if my flowers were growing
they were mama's too, but my eyes feasted on them just for myself a little
i checked on them every morning of april and may to see if the bells had arrived
usually, just before my birthday, i could hear their little lily-of-the-valley song

it followed me down the hill and to the city for the week-end
it followed me to italian seasides, the old men and womens' arms clasped
around each other singing "turna sorrento" eyes closed and chests proud,
it followed me even to school, one morning
it whistled softly, forlornly, down by my toes, and i
bent down, too early for any other
wayfaring stranger to see, and i let
the bells kiss me on my nose

i've gone much further away now,
and have had many more cares and woes
but i carry the lily clear bell song in my heart
and where ever i go, it grows

to donny:

one october
i hit my head
getting into my car
parked too close to the
cambridgian curb and a few
days after began the big new job
and a few days after read on facebook
that you jumped off the george washington bridge
and a few months later he questioned why i
still got sad about you even though i
hadn't seen you in a few years and
a few months later he dumped me,
twice, and a few years later i
left that city, and another
few years later, i,
wrote this song,
and a few
moments
later

i still felt sad, but, i
felt better,
too

sun and earth

perihelion; 

we perch, our tall chairs pushed tightly together

at a square table opposite the bar (no room 

at the inn) the wine, an aged italian dripping 

lusty barnyard moonlight and black pepper,  

absorbs perilously short range pressured rays

the impact will throb in the morning, but for the moment, 

it's safe here, leaning closer for your

didactic confidences painting portraits

twenty years young and centuries old

i perse my lips, pondering a list of sweets

Go on, you say, it's your choice, you continue, 

I know decisions are difficult, and you pause. 

i feel you watching me.

i let the wonder linger.

hazelnut and chocolate, or something new, something

sunflowery, olive oil and grapefruit. cream. pistachios. 

i've already had my first anchovie tonight, ah well--

qui ne risque rien n'a rien. 

i catch our waiter's eye.

something unbearable traces the etches in the thick ring 

you wear on your right hand; spells of it dance twisting the blue, i know 

your eyes are still smiling at mine. i don't let myself look again,

one more glass of wine. one more stolen story from your magpie lair.

any second, we'll shift; i'll move, you'll stay the same.

i'll drift back, back,

away.

aphelion:

apart.