Vol 8, Num 16 :: 2009.07.31 — 2009.09.03
Surprised by joy, impatient as the wind
Wordsworth
We were the blue house between the hills
people in cars felt the dip
as they sped by
Long-haired and tee-shirted
The Reagan era was coming but we
didn’t know we were
squashing tomato bugs in our fingers
looking at the size of our squash plants
while the neighbors looked
at us
Soy meat and wheat bread
homemade yoghurt and dad
jogging for health on country roads
(The neighbors drove by in their Fords
and thought if he was running then he was being
chased)
We were the lapsed Catholics
Sundays spent with the big newspaper
my brother and I making our 25 cent candy last
When grown I searched out their white bread
drywall fluorescent bulb churches
Now I know
Wrapped around us
the smell of incense
the sage that grew by the paths
May-apples in the ditches by rusting
mailboxes slipped over and under my secret dream:
something that looks like Sesame Street
grocer
city
block
We were the smell of lentils and onions
in the red pot (nobody near had a pot like mom)
The taste of tofu on Sunday nights
Joy — always surprising
years later and right now
under the fold and hidden
in the mix — seeping not leaping
impatient and writhing and beating
unwieldy as the wind
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