Scavenging

Scavenging the attic joists for boxes of

                      memories

looking through yearbooks and brown-edged

                   photos

for notes sung in showers,

        of bob-skates strapped to

             galoshes

sliding down a knoll in the middle

                    of the school-yard ice

on a frozen February night

               as part of a contrived

escape plan to evade the

              storm in the brick

saltbox at 104….

                           only to waken

in the dentist’s chair

                          months later

after the puck shortened

                two front teeth

and sounded the final

              bell

shrinking hockey into

              Saturday afternoon

skating

                 and then there were

tattered programs from

                   piano recitals and

          ladies’ night solos

in tweed jackets and bow ties

               on searsucker shirts

……..worn too in the rock garden

for the posed sitting with

                 a very young and

smocked sister

                 surrounded by

gladiolas and peonies

              and bent stocks

        of fat red, ripe,

                       raspberries

                  as if we were

living a kind of

               liturgically

choreographed apprenticeship

           for decades of

performances in search of

                         applause

and more applause

           in a film-loop

of trophy gardening and

                    trophy parenting

 adhering strictly to a paint by number

                canvas lined by
                                myths of perfection.