The asbestos shingle fell off long ago,

Along the wall in front,

Where the living room hides behind closed curtains.

She won’t recall when or where it even went.

.

The yard, larger than most,

Along this back street of small homes

And odd-sized yards.

Is only slightly overgrown,

In the way that chores

sneak past habit,

To sporadic neglect.

.

Ringed in a low fence,

That once kept a dog in,

Or a playing child safe from harm.

.

Simple things like that, they once had,

Or at least dreamed of.

.

But years of cigarettes and drink,

Took him

From her,

In a long night of oblivion.

.

Happily-ever-after into eternity

Came to an end,

Suddenly.

.

But she stopped crying long ago.

.

The days now might looked rehearsed,

Her shift at the grocery store,

Unchanged for the last three years.

.

There was the time her brother came out

And the fellow down the street,

Who would call from time to time,

Their appearances so long ago,

But seeming like yesterday.

In a place where time keeps pace

With the falling of an asbestos shingle

From the living room wall.

.

She rarely looks me in the eye,

Like she did then,

Pulling off a cigarette,

While the sun casts crimson

Across a high cloud deck

With a single opening out east,

Where she imagines great blue winged dragons

Will fly in,

And dance around the yard.

That winter, they fought tooth and nail

Over how best to prune the apple tree.

Dad: sure in his years, like the tree

Perhaps their best years gone by

Or the most celebrated to come.

.

And, Son: the new idea,

Like newfound loves,

Light, lively and vigorous.

.

Tree: wind worn, deer scraped

And broken long ago,

Now crooked like time

In places where things move little,

To those who have the patience to see.

.

Picture Dad: looming over wrinkled pewter skies

Tall on the visions he nurtured long ago,

While the long angles of his fingers,

Turned and knuckled, like the branches,

Tracing the grand plans he still holds,

Across a chill February wind.

.

And Son: bright, leafy shade tree

For long naps in summer sun,

While his places, perhaps dormant still,

Waiting for Spring warmth

Like the budded branch,

To be rattled and tested on the next stormy wind.

 

She starts slowly,

Her hands, circling gestures, hinting to far off places:

Familiar,

In the way that long gone memories suddenly reappear,

New and old,

As the eyes of a newborn might tell.

.

Her story moves,

Along the lines of his sweaty brow:

Furrows of dusty habits, streaked and stale.

And his face: a worn vista of hope,

A shell of the dances they once rehearsed.

.

She conjures over sagging eyes,

Rising to bright skies:

That one window they have left,

Where thirst and promise mingle

On that one day the afternoon light hangs,

Suddenly, still and unmoving.

.

Their separation: a restless wait,

But marked with patience,

As he turns, fetching verses from a box of years,

Stepping on the one plank, long gone warped and dry,

Creaking, and sounding the first note

Of a long song they will sing once again.

But when you called my name,

In this time of bicycles and fresh afternoons,

I stood where the sidewalk turned west.

.

Leading me by the vacant windows

Where the sophisticates would sit,

High on the wine of their indifference,

Their laughter: cruelly mocking relief,

Really, though, just fragile threads,

Held fast by nothing more than frayed ends

Giving way to a life gone easy and fallow:

This was not your voice.

.

Further down the way,

Etched across hunkered, toiling hopes,

A lifetime of soured chances,

Spent casting ropes, and thinking

Oh, the thinking!

Surely this time,

A loop will catch,

And pull the whole of us along.

No, this was not your town.

.

In that time of bicycles and fresh afternoons,

The fired afternoon glory of the grass

Still holding fast to its grand summer celebration

Marks the path,

From where you once called my name,

Calling us all home again

For the wind and rain to hold us fast.

Our ideals, then, were liquored with blackberries,

That would form the evening air,

Into a sweet, heavy stillness.

.

Your dappled voice was almost hidden

Along the waters edge, and in the eddies

Your hair would drape over the smooth curve of rock,

While your eyes reflected the far off storms.

.

The banter of our dreams then:

You following the worn path of bears,

Guiding us over the barbed wire,

And crossing into our place.

.

There you whispered raindrops into my ears,

And I cobbled together water stories.

Those were dreams we had then,

Savored,

And marked in the hollows of sand

Filling the long, easy spaces between stones.

.

I don’t remember the pear tree then,

Why didn’t we reach up it’s long trunk,

Pruned in the year of bears,

Clothed in glistening leaves of poison oak,

And held fast by thorns?

…

Where I go now there is a tree,

It grows tall and straight, and,

In some years, hangs heavy with fruit.

I sit on the stories between the sand,

Biting down into the almost ripe memories

Of the love we shared, and still lingers

In the spaces between stone and water.

.

Nearly full and sweet,

Juices rolling off the stone,

Soaking into the sand, like our tears:

Watered by the storms that you dreamed of then.