Thank you
Laurie,
for bringing over chicken
soup
and lifesavers
when I was sick, washed out,
alone in my single apartment.
The sound of you
clanking my pans, the squreak
of
a can opener
listening to my tinny radio
on a sunny day in May
fixing me a treat in the
kitchen--
does something to me.
outside somebody's thumping
reminds me of a boy,
12 years old, playing
basketball,
the backboard
an abandoned road sign
it's my brother,
wearing a blue Tshirt
never a white one-we had no
white sheets
white towels--even our dust
bunnies were red.
from my bedroom at home I
could
shut my eyes
and hear flies buzzing on the
screen
someone downstairs talking to
the cat
the hardback books settling
into the bookcases,
someone else
to call the electric company
when the power went out
someone else
to light the woodstove
cold mornings,
someone else to sit beside me
when I was sick, and tell
stories.
Thank you Laurie, for
clanking pans
for reminding me of the house
I lived in once, the one where
everything
had a sound,
everything
had a color.
