Behind your tiny, lavender painted house

with its central staircase of stripped

wood leading up and over to a bedroom

I imagined, being slightly unkempt

but not at all disheveled. Living, as

you were, alone, what need is there

to make your bed? Why not leave the

sheets and lilac comforter to hanging

over the edge of the carved footboard,

which hasn’t been properly cleaned or

waxed in years and is striped with gouges

through the lacquer where you used to

set your father’s Army surplus footlocker

on it and rummage through for the

things that you hadn’t wanted anyone

else to find.

//

Behind your tiny, lavender house,

is an unconstrained field and then a ditch, then a

highway and a trainyard.

//

Behind your tiny, lavender house

is an unconstrained field that looks

like it might be littered with rusted

nails and broken bottle shards still

attached to the sliver of label,

“Mickey’s” or “Old Style,” green

or brown glass, depending. The

tiny, lavender painted house with

it’s central staircase of stripped

wood, leading, I imagined, to your

unkempt but not disheveled bed.

What need was there, living alone,

as you were, to make the bed? Why

not leave the lilac sheets hanging

over the edge of the carved footboard,

which hasn’t been properly cleaned

or oiled in years. I left the request

tucked neatly in the black iron

box next to the glass-paneled door,

lace stretched behind it, all six feet.

And now, years later, I imagine your

bright curly hair, and google you,

hoping to find, as I begin to write

this poem, an idea of where you have

gone. If, perhaps, your career

has gone so startlingly poorly as

mine. Still, though, the field. Its

expanse, from your back door,

unfenced, it ran two hundred,

no, four hundred, yards in a town

where ten feet between the back wall

of one’s enclosed garden and the

next could be considered enough. It

bounded away, a plain of wild

grass in a town that struggled to

maintain the grass it closely cultivated.

And now, years later, I imagine your

bushel of bright curly hair, and google

you, hoping to find if your career, perhaps,

has gone as startlingly poorly as mine.

And now, years later, I imagine your

bushel of bright curly hair and, sitting

down to write this poem, google you

to find out where you might be, now.

But I still imagine you looking out

the back bedroom window over that

field. Bounding back two, no four,

hundred yards in a town where ten,

twenty feet’s separation is enough., it

stretched so far and then a ditch and

then a highway and then a train depot

and I still imagine you looking over

this all from that upstairs bedroom,

preparing to write, preparing to bring

something unseen into the world.

//

Behind your tiny, lavender house

is an unconstrained field that looks

like it might be littered with rusted

nails and broken bottle shards still

attached to the sliver of label,

“Mickey’s” or “Old Style,” green

or brown glass, depending. The

tiny, lavender painted house with

it’s central staircase of stripped

wood, leading, I imagined, to your

unkempt but not disheveled bed.

What need was there, living alone,

as you were, to make the bed? Why

not leave the lilac sheets hanging

over the edge of the carved footboard,

which hasn’t been properly cleaned

or oiled in years. I left the request

tucked neatly in the black iron

box next to the glass-paneled door,

lace stretched behind it, all six feet.

And now, years later, I imagine your

bushel of bright curly hair and, sitting

down to write this poem, google you

to find out where you might be, now.

But I still imagine you looking out

the back bedroom window over that

field. Bounding back two, no four,

hundred yards in a town where ten,

twenty feet’s separation is enough., it

stretched so far and then a ditch and

then a highway and then a train depot

and I still imagine you looking over

this all from that upstairs bedroom,

preparing to write, preparing to bring

something unseen into the world.

--RFRY, 06 Aug 06

These are the attempts that would become Near Fourth and Fourth.