A Dark Memory, A Poem, A Warning
STOP SIGNS I am a child This is Great-Grandma’s house An evening visit And I’m happy Graham crackers and tea Lamplight a dull yellow through a thick shade Dark green carpet Shelves holding a ceramic menagerie A classical record playing softly in the background I sit on her lap Her hand is dry against my arm Old skin as thin as the paper between apples in a gift basket A fine calm night The album is leather-bound and ancient Portals of black and white Magic rectangles with time-rusted edges I have never seen her siblings before Legends, all now dead There were thirteen of them And she the youngest, the only American-born I see her young Sitting on the riverbank The Passaic River, Paterson, New Jersey Before modern pollution Still swimmable then She sits on the ground A book in her hands A face like Katherine Hepburn On the page across Two of her brothers Slightly older Are happy, ...