Thank You

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.