POEMS ABOUT CHILDHOOD

PAIN

When the wind howls
Through the hollows,
Something must fill them.

Heat your knife in the flame
Until the blade is black,
Then press it into flesh:
Arm or leg is best.
Stomach and thigh work, too.

For these are private devotions,
Not for others’ sight.

Pain will fill the gaps
and remind the flesh
it is intact;
not mere emptiness and loss.

TABLE ROCK LAKE

Lakeside breezes
Smell of fish and diesel oil,
Sweet bait and American cheese;
the Air Force coat redolant of Old Spice
and the mingled scents of the car trunk.
“She looks like a refugee,” mother scolds,
But I hug the coat closer,
Imagining great adventures
As the boat slips off the trailer
and into the water.
Cold breezes carry
The sound of children playing along the shore.

WARRENSBURG, MISSOURI

A startled moment
Looking up the stairs.
Mother lifts her arm
And the iron frying pan
Flies toward my head
But hits the wall instead.
Duck and grab my sister’s hand —
We run outside
And hide in our tree fort
Until father comes home.
And I never learn
What made her snap:
Nor have ever dared to ask.

ANCHORAGE, ALASKA

Lookalike military housing
Hides the steep hill behind
That is covered with forest
And dips down into a valley.
Autumn; the weather is cold
But not yet snowy,
And I stand hidden by trees
Before two older boys.
Take off your pants, they say,
Or else we’ll tell what you have done.
What did I do? I don't know.
But they skim off their own:
And the rest? 

Memory is a lie:
I remember too well what was not
And too often fail to remember what was.

MY DOG

A black and white photograph
Shows him beside me
With a face I don’t remember.
He has shared my bed
All of my life.
My breath is part of him.
Fever sweat, grieving tears,
Night fears and day depressions
Have robbed his eyes
Of expression
And worn him to rags
That I have replaced with shabby patches.
At night he is a warm lump
Pressed against my bosom
And I lie curled around him
As if he were my heart.
By day he rests
Against the pillows
In a position of honor,
And if I am tired
I nap with him against me
Tucked under my chin
Or in the curve of my neck.
Patched, threadbare, worn,
Smelly, hard, torn
Misshapen with age and love
Nobody shares my heart the way
He does.

MEMORIES

Memories haunt me
Of places I have never seen,
People I have never known,
Things I have never done;
But still they wake me up
In tears or in laughter
And make me feel empty
In the middle of a crowd,
Or weep like a child
Under a cloudy sky.
And I yearn
To remember what cannot be remembered
And live lives I have never lived
Where the colors are brighter
And the emotions truer
Than this.

A hallway of red-flocked velvet
Wallpaper and a room beyond;
Adult men and smoke
And an overwhelming sense of fear.

Three friends
Black, white, and grey,
Whom I can rely on for anything
But still have yet to meet.

A room with tall windows
Showing trees and drizzling rain,
And a piano being played
And a floor of chilly tile.

A wide bed with a dark quilt
Inside an old house with farmland
And the smell of dust and age
And elderly people around me.

A large house, split-level,
With antiquities all around
Do not touch; an empty icebox;
A sense of homeless suspension.

If memories shape us,
does it matter if they're real?