Along the avenue a regiment of trees
stood rigid, and in the house as big as a
Saturday the clocks ticked on amid stagnant air,
slack doorknobs, paint chips—
the rumble of casings and pocket doors.
Such images culled from memory
travel in a slow migration
of thought, clogging the throat with things.
From the old garage that clung to the flanks of the house
like a lesser organ to the girl who dragged a bicycle
out by its neck, past the grease pit, ice pick, wood beams
and the grass that waited for no one.
Inside the basement’s underground life
remained calm: ash box, vice grip, hook
and eye; reliable occupants
biding their time.
It is not the memory of wood
to be blamed, or the dining room’s
hermetic servitude where dust motes floated
like lost chromosomes.
The house and the girl kept their distance
from the adult figures who idled
in dim lit rooms, meal after meal,
words masticated like tough meat.
Perhaps their story still remains
staged among the accoutrements of desire;
Playboys, stockings, cologne, a bed
too wide to fill. Memory, as usual speaks
in the sudden recollection of things.
Small wonder the girl left
for homes less perilous
and the avenue was endless.