Plum St.

I think about it,
going back there,
turning left at the house
with the teal shingles,
walking down that quiet street
and finding that little
duplex and its square parking lot
in back, stuck between single homes,
I imagine I'd stand at the
edge of the grass on the front
lawn and look up to the second floor,
into those windows I can't quite
remember, fearful of taking another
step and slipping back there
into childhood and the past,

I can see the little circular kitchen table,
at the end of yellowed tile,
wood box tv set in the corner where
my dad hid a toy he'd gotten me
in a paper bag, the tweed couch facing
it,

my big orange cat shuffles
down the hallway, the same one
he'd run so fast through that
he'd take a few steps along
the wall,

Mom is everywhere, I can't
manage one single memory
but that the whole house was
her,

I'd turn from the house,
never touching one blade of
grass and head to the park at
end of street where once I'd hit
a lightning bug with a baseball
bat, swinging and watching
his light and life trail off into
the darkness,

I am still cursed, I have
still not forgiven--

then I'd sit there maybe,
sit there alone, I'm not sure
what else I'd do, what
else I'd see,

I've grown old,
I've gone away,
I can't even hold onto memories.