Where does it all begin?
The answer
falls through empty spots somewhere between the stuff now and when
nothing was around.
It’s not a bridge to be walked
across or even leaped
over in a bound or a couple of giant steps —
the kind your father would take as you walked with him down the drive before the sun set and his shadow touched the front door all the way from the street until his hand turned the nob
and swung it aside.
There just isn’t anything there — until you’re here,
and it’s now. You have to open the door
that you don’t remember walking up to,
because this is where you live. So go in. Pick up
where the beginning left off.
But don’t lift the edge of the carpet.
Don’t flip the couch cushions, or empty the garbage
on the kitchen floor, or check the pea trap under the sink.
The answer
flew up to the ceiling, got caught in the fan, got licked up by every porous surface,
every fiber. Like cigarette smoke, it hangs around. Once lit,
once burned, once breathed, once exhaled the beginning won’t end.
It always stays. Don’t stare. Walk back through
the door you never remember
walking up to,
down the drive to the street. Squeeze your father’s hand tight.
Pick the dandelion growing up between the drive and the curb.
Hold it up to your father like the entire contents of your toy chest,
like the last time you remember his lips
purchasing your peaceful night’s sleep
as he tucked the covers tight around you. Hold his hand
tighter than you hold the memory of that night, Aug. 15th,
you wrote it in your journal by the dim nightlight after he left the room with the door cracked, just enough so that your room was still connected to theirs. Smile
knowing that he’ll keep the flower on his desk. Then let go. Open the door
you never remember.
YOU ARE READING
Poem Sunday
PoetryYep. It's Sunday. Have a poem. I am foremost not a poet, but it was an early love. And it is a form of expression that deserves as much love as it can get.
