I Remember
Beating the pillows on the open sill
Sheets billowing above the street
Look out down there we'll smother you
But the bed cool from airing
Laundered fresh by daylight and breeze
- - - - -
The wooden bridge across the bay
I fearless nightly crossing
My innocence left in lamplight
With fisherman in stillness staying
Not bridge but water swaying
- - - - -
Summer's sweat and soaking sheets
The hopelessness of heat
Inescapably imploding
Until 4 AM's cool breeze
Rescues me near morning
- - - - -
Blinking my brights in Georgia
On a lonely two-lane night
To greet the truckers
Coming myself going
A foolish camaraderie yet
Soothing this silent hallooing
- - - - -
Readying raw greasy ground beef
Washed under running water
And sculptured into patties
Faithfully four to the pound
Scooping samples from the plate
My chubby pre-teen hands
Slippery and glowing
Wishing to gorge on all of it
Dispense with the rite of broiling
In those sweet days before
The pathology of knowing
- - - -
Homeward from the library
With an armful of juicy books
To find an overlooked paperback
That I'd slipped into a back pocket
My first though inadvertent theft
The book I found I kept
4/20-4/28/99, 4/7/07
Copyright 1999, 2007 by Maurice Leiter
Posted with permission
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