Bowling for gym

Strangely, I work there now,

In the same building

where we had bowling

for gym

downstairs.

Now I park my car

in the lot where the van had left us,

walk past the door that led to the lanes

I don’t clearly remember,

and I go upstairs to an office

in the building

where I was in 4th grade.

Sometimes the door leading down

is open,

and the steps to where I think I bowled

are dangerous

and the walls crumbly

and water dripping,

and a workman’s lamp

hooked onto a wire

lights a damp way down.

What could I remember

about bowling underground

when I was 9?

I, who had a tortoise named Tootie

that only I remember,

I, with a distinct, unshared memory

of the neighbor

chasing me down my street with a rifle

after I’d crept onto his lawn

with other kids,

I, with a great grandmother I remember sleeping

in the top bunk

at a nursing home

as if 90 year old women in nursing homes

had bunk beds?

Who could I ask if we’d truly bowled

in a basement alley
where I was a little girl

and now am 51?

Cortege

We followed others,

taking highways through towns where she never lived,

in a town I won’t go back to.

I won’t know how.

I’d been there before in dreams,

near our summer cottage.

If you took the Indian trail,

You’d come upon this place

of tall monuments

against a hillside

with ancient writing.

I went many times. I never felt frightened.

In life, the path frightened me.

I never knew it existed

until the day we drove in

through the gates

in our rental car

and the road curved

and we drove slowly

and it was all green

and there was the hillside

with white monuments.  

I’d been there.

She knew no one there.

She was buried next to no one she knows.

She’s buried in a town she didn't know

but might have driven through

or maybe stopped in

for manicures or rugelach,

And now I won’t find her again.

I won’t visit her there

until I am back on the Indian trail.