Houses I Have Known II: Taking Stock

My first home after
mom’s womb was
a matchbox apartment
on the beach in San Diego
there were lemon trees,
a bathroom skylight,
and the rushing ocean

the second place was the site
of my first dream
it was there that I crawled
through the clunking
insides of a clock,
all cogs and springs,
and I looked out across
a bulldozed horizon
a yellow machine
blasting piles of dirt
for no apparent reason

once my grandfather
and his wife visited

my mother said
I like your makeup
my grandfather's wife said,
thanks it’s pancake
and I’ve spent over
a decade trying to figure
if I heard correctly

after that we switched
country sides
it was a yellow duplex
near boston
where I think
there was a miserable Christmas

in the spring we
searched for easter eggs
in the early summer
my father found a rotten one
forgotten months before

I had the chicken pox
and scratched for days
examined my tongue
in the mirror
and tried to pass it on
to my brother

this is where the
circuits fail some

oh yes, we went a town
or two over
moved into a house
that smelled like paint
I put my nose
to the walls I loved it so much

my mother described it as
salmon colored

she exercised
on a Stairmaster
and prayed the rosary
at the same time
I’ll never forget those
heaving Hail Mary’s
the rhythmic Our Father’s
in time with
her flexed calves

My sister told me
what pot was,
my mother and father
screamed
I’m not sure
what was wrong
I remember rolling fruit,
apples and oranges

One day my father
got into his beat up Volkswagon bus
and drove away
to Oregon

there was another yellow house
near Boston on Six Park Avenue
my mother mentioned the address
to everyone
I wasn’t sure why it mattered

I read the Secret Garden
I listened to a 60’s box set
my father sent in the mail
my mother gave us a fish
and we had bunk beds

once she wouldn’t let
me sleep up top she said
if you fall off
we’ll be buying you a casket
and that’s that