Eleanor Remembers
— Cortland
It was the kind of town where if your neighbors
saw you walking, they assumed you’d lost your license —
too many DUIs — or your car, too many payments
missed. All winter piles of gray snow made tunnels
of the sidewalks, shrouded the scrawny brown lawns,
the pickups on blocks in front of shotgun houses
so small and poorly made it seemed a miracle
to see them standing, their yellow lights faint
behind thinned kitchen curtains in the early dark.
More bars than churches, one long block of shops
where brats like me bought tie-dyed tee shirts
and black candles, patchouli and my famous
crushed velvet overalls with the pink satin rose
embroidered on the bib. That battered army jacket
like the one you’d worn in Nam. It’s true
we lived beside the railroad tracks, walked miles
of dirt road to suffer third shift at Smith Corona —
two fools dreaming of some rock and roll Utopia
where all day we’d drift in endless spring,
feast on fruit that dropped ripe and unblemished
from mescaline-radiant trees, the air clean
and lush with music that never stopped. No shrilling
factory floor or time-clocks, no sullen foreman
hissing freaks when we passed. Your father rose
each day to beer in a jelly glass, Pall Malls
and dirty novels, leered at me when we emerged
from your room, imagining my mouth
on your shoulder, our narrow bed among
apocalyptic visions of flood and fire you’d drawn
on the black-lit walls. But then, this too —
AJ’s farm, somebody’s kids always tearing it up
in the rough grass, So What or River
cool on repeat through the torn screen door.
Behind the barn, that pond we pelted,
laughing, with broken glass and ashes, twitching
fish unperturbed among the slender stems
of water lilies swaying in the green-gold murk.
Late autumn’s crystalline light, the wind fragrant
with apples. At night, too many stars to count.