Trespass

No dogs allowed but I brought her
and we walked past all the Our Town people
Merrill Walker Smith Morse Peabody
here lies with his wife
and the babies who lived for just months
with small angels with
tilted heads beside them.
The school bus drove past,
and leaves softly fell,
and we shuffled through.
The sun set beyond the yellow maples
and the man played golf on the other side
of the headstones,
hitting the ball and walking slowly
on the low lawn.

I found someone I knew.
She was who I would want to be,
generous and respected with only kind words
and gifts and an easy smile given to anyone.
I met her when I was just married,
at a seasonal museum
where a very old docent and I would sit and wait for cars to pull up,
for them to ask about the family,
the mother and husband,
the boy who was shot, or shot the mother.
I don't remember.

She came to the house to organize a tag sale
for the Colonial Dames.
I'd never heard of Colonial Dames
or a tag sale.
Women who had families
who had been on the Mayflower
brought antiques.
Not musty clothes from their basements or Avon cologne bottles shaped like cars or
record albums like Petula Clark or the Bee Gees. These were
ink wells and trivets and andirons and willow ware and tapestries.

She gave me
a china cup so thin I could see my fingers through it
and a candy dish from France
and an emerald green marble desk set she said
I was to give to my husband for our anniversary.

She'd lost her grandson to AIDS
when it was new and he was young,
and she made a home for young men dying.
And she wore a feather boa
And she invited me to her house for tea.

I walked past her today
where she lies with her husband,
and school children ride by,
and dogs chase squirrels,
and the sun lowers itself
into the ground.

Picking a Fight

She’d invited me to go apple picking so I picked her up between our houses in a lot by the highway and we drove the sideroads to an orchard we’d been to with our own children and had come to from different ways but not this.  She changed into sneakers from her dress shoes as I drove and she struggled to lace and bend while belted into her seat and we talked about later that day how she had plans to meet with friends and I had to be home to do something I don’t remember since I don’t really think I had plans. We had our windows down half way to let crisp air in that smelled of fires and cider. Our hair whirled and tangled and my nose began to run and I wasn’t sure I knew how to get to the orchard from the lot in a town that wasn’t mine and she had no idea how to help since she had no sense of direction.  A handpainted finger pointed us down toward Hansel’s abutting the dirt road which we followed and pulled into a spot that wasn’t a parking spot the rest of the year but just a place with grass and few rocks and apple trees all around. The woman asked how much we planned to pick and we chose a peck since the apples looked just about ready but not quite. Then we walked down an aisle of trees and we each plucked an apple or two to plunk into the basket we’d set between us on the ground. Plunk. Plunk plunk. Gentle with apples, they bruise.

A smattering of families passed by us on their way to the trees they imagined held riper redder juicier fruit. We stopped near a tree so laden with fruit that the branches sagged close to the ground. We each found an apple to pick that was mostly green with a brushstroke of red from where it looked up to the sun. We stood by the basket. We bit into our apples. Warm. Sharp.

Leaves rustling in the wind.

Bite.

I don’t understand why you said, how we let, we had promised we’d never but I haven’t seen you in months. I never meant why did you? Well it sure seemed so to me at least that’s what I heard whether you meant to or not. I would never do that but you did and we said we would never and now we’re no better than her since we promised we’d never get here. Then you said and it hurt and I’d never say that to our daughters so why? I thought when you said, no I didn’t mean it that way but that’s how it came across. And we’re here. Bite. Quiet. Bite.

We were getting chilled. There weren’t enough red ones to fill our basket. We were done looking. We split them into two plastic bags I had in my trunk. got back in the car and drove back to her car, down the bumpy dirt road.

Yiskor

They all died in the fall.
Was it the thought and worry of winter and the dark mornings,
the quiet of birds gone, or is that just in poetry?

All those people who loved me and who loved us
and who lived days and jobs and kept
homes and summer places
and gardened and took care
of people
and ate cornflakes and
spaghetti and meatballs
and borscht
and called friends and golfed and cooled
off in the lake and smelled of
tobacco and maple
and gardenia and cologne
and could build and comfort and play gin
and bake and sing old songs
and they held my children and
took care of my children
and never saw my children
grow.

We give their names to our children
and teach them remnants of stories and songs
and tell them how loved they'd be.

I remember them so sweetly today.

Grandma: 9/10/82
Grandpa: 10/8/94
Dad: 9/4/03
Ray: 9/15/07
Margie: 9/24/14

Last First Day of School

Goodbye, Target, KMart, WalMart,
Goodbye, grocery stores in strange cities, to buy mac and cheese and granola bars and goldfish and cold medicine,
Goodbye, Staples with overpriced binders and ethernet cords we never needed but bought because they said we needed them, and XL sheets made to fit XL beds they only make for college dorms
and toiletry baskets new each year because the old one
broke
got sticky
is gross
got lost
the handle comes off
isn't mine. You never bought me one.
And surge protector cords.
And Rubbermaid carriers and
stuffed animals being transported to sit on dorm beds
and graphing calculators never needed after one year
and wide ruled paper and pencil boxes and colored pencils and
so many folders (I have an orange one and a red one and a blue one and a green one and I need one more and they don't have any other colors.)
and lunch boxes that will smell bad by October
and juice boxes and fruit rollups
and new shoes because the old ones stopped fitting last week
and new clothes and first day outfits and meeting the bus
and snacks after school as my children run down the road.
Goodbye, children, running down the road.
Twenty two years of school,
of first days and last days,
and here is today, the last first one,
Goodbye, first days
and all the days that followed,
Goodbye my children,
I will miss you.

Stop this train

I'm up!
Tonight because of a load of laundry being run
at 11:30,
last night because of the dog scratching her ear
and I got up and put her on the kitchen counter and poured a shot glass of vinegar water in it.
The night before because where are the keys? Where are the keys?
wherearethekeyswherearethekeys.
And every night John Mayer plays as soon as I open my eyes,
a concert just for me and he's waiting for only me
so he can play just one song over and over.
Stop This Train
don't hunh hunh I' m moving in,
hunh hunh
Stop this train.
My sheets are not crisp.
Everything is so sticky!
The washing machine is not white noise.
I'm so hot!
We need milk. I hope there's enough for coffee.
Does the corroding pipe in the garage hold up the whole house?
What if I'd never noticed?
Would he have noticed?
Once in a while
hunh hunh
I need to eat more fruit. I'll bring raspberries and blueberries tomorrow.
Load
Rinse
Spin
So scared of getting old,
hunh hunh being young.
She's leaving in just a week and a half
I am so sad.
Will John Mayer play every night until I die?
Why does he play every night? Why doesn't he know the words?
Quit snoring!
Never gonna stop this train.
Shut up!
I should get up and read.
The sofa smells like dog.
We should get a new sofa.
I hate my house.
Why do we sleep in this room?
I hate this room.
What is the word, what is the word, what is the word . . .
What the hell am I trying to think of! There is no word, you lunatic!
I am huge.
I need to eat only fruit tomorrow.
Don't for a minute change the place you're in
hunh hunh hunh
Stop this train.

Pattern

I come from a woman who writes, who came from a man who wrote. She's always been clever with words. This isn't mine, it's hers. I found it scrawled on a piece of paper, tucked in between dishes I took from her:

On the back of my dishes
Which I took from my mother
Laying claim long ago
Lest they go to another
Like a sister or daughter
Or heaven forfend
The woman next door
Or the best childhood friend.

The dish on its front
Has a well painted flower
Unknown to my garden
Never seen in my bower
Also starlike shaped dots
Going round the wide brim
They're not to my taste,
They never have been.

Amerescoggin Road

Just 3 roads away is where they began their lives,
the two people who raised me.
They often told the story of this house, their first home.
They had no furniture and their good friends at the top of the road brought chairs
down to their house
every time they entertained.

It's all I know about this place, really,
and now I've found a booklet of 7 photos,
no people,
all bound together,
all the same photo
of the house they lived in
for a year.

My father must have had a reason
to print 7
and bind them in a booklet.
He was always sharing his photos.
Maybe he planned to.

Soon,
when I get up the nerve,
I'll walk over to the house and offer this booklet,
this little bit of history for them to know.
Here, here is your house in 1952.
My parents lived here.
They had no furniture.