Near Fourth and Fourth

Behind your tiny, lavender house

was an unconstrained field that looked

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

its 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 hadn’t been properly cleaned

or oiled in years. I left the request

tucked neatly in the black iron

box next to the 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.

But still I 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

This is v1 of Near Fourth and Fourth.