Photo by Viva Zhang on Unsplash
Streetlight
I would wake and watch
from my bedroom window
as the snow fell in a waterfall of white
under the glow of the streetlight,
a suburban beacon shining
on my narrow side road.
I found comfort in its silent vigil,
the neighbor’s house shrouded
in a dark secret beyond its reach.
On warm summer evenings,
with moths spinning circles overhead,
I pretended the pavement was a stage
and the streetlight was my spotlight.
I tapped liked Shirley Temple
or landed over the rainbow as Judy Garland,
an imaginary scarecrow, lion, and tinman in tow.
Stardom was my great escape from truth.
When a hurricane stormed through,
the streetlight stood against the wind
and illuminated the torrential rain
that barreled down the night,
flooding the road and our front yard
up to the lip of the cement stoop.
Then the bulb burned out.
When I couldn’t sleep,
the blackness took the shape of ghouls
and feral beasts out to touch me
where no girl should be touched
by a neighbor old enough to be my father.
A few weeks later,
I stood in the grass shading my eyes
as a man in uniform climbed into the sky
on the pole’s rusty rungs,
a white strap around his waist rising with him.
It was like he was reviving a living thing,
a silent friend
for a child also in need of mending.
Sudden Branch Drop Syndrome
August. A windless day. Humid. Sticky.
My maple tree,
with its green sky of five-pointed leaves,
minds its own business
at the yard’s outer edge
while I weed the garden in early morning,
no help from my husband or teens
who prefer to sleep late
while I bend and pull and carry
after washing the late-night dishes,
getting the laundry started,
feeding the dogs,
answering work emails.
The town is awake for Saturday errands.
Neighbors wave.
I am working fast before the heat rises
when crack crackle swish thud.
Earthly thunder.
The rain of green stars.
A massive limb blocks the road,
stops the flow of traffic like an instant dam.
Sudden Branch Drop Syndrome.
Some trees are prone.
Why it happens remains a mystery,
though theories abound.
I’m guessing the tree grew weary
of holding out its arm like someone asking for help
with the sky on the verge of collapse.
Something I suddenly fully understand.
Clock
With my biological clock ticking,
I pressed my husband to begin our family.
We were overjoyed to welcome
two children two years apart,
to see my grandmother’s eyes in our daughter,
my husband’s long toes on our son.
When I set up the playroom,
I hung family photos across generations,
some in sepia, in black and white
and Kodak instant color.
I made labels with names and dates.
I also mounted a round schoolhouse clock
with large numbers, distinct minutes
and black hands that swept the hours.
I wanted my children to learn to tell time
from a clockface before digital took over.
To hear the days ticking.
Family faces became part of their flights
of imagination.
Blonde Aunt Esther was a good witch,
Uncle Henry a villain with a handlebar moustache
and a pocket watch at the end of a long fob in his fist.
They drew peace signs like on my T-shirt from the Sixties.
Once the kids were grown,
the playroom was to be a place for grandchildren,
but the goddess of fertility is not always generous.
The clock still hangs on the wall,
batteries expired, hands frozen,
time silent and broken
like the family line.