Then Again

To find me, try the street of Mahoney’s Fruit

and Furniture, street of the Software Barn

and the Sacred Heart Federal Credit Union,

street where opposites mix, where all the bliss

and rancor I recall, all the cluttered details

of the past, reach a happy ending, settling in

at the same address. The sun has almost finished

drying patches of last night’s rain. A cat

trapped in a crawl space squirms out

through a crack in the apartment building’s foundation,

stretches, purrs, and cleans herself

by the feet of a dog, dozing in the driveway.

A vagrant sits like a sultan on a ruby sofa

set out as trash near the curb. He waves.

All of my friends wave, too, as they pass

in their polished convertibles. High above the street,

behind a shade, my father and mother sleep

in their one bed, each spooling out a dream

briskly-plotted and comical. No need to wake them.

Soon they will rise and go down together

to breakfast, to the glistening pitcher of milk

that waits in the Frigidaire. I’m only riding

my bike up the block and back again, balanced

on memory’s rickety wheel. No need to wake them.