Grown

It clings like soggy cardboard, forgotten

and left to crust on the summertime linoleum floor

If I wanted long

                        long

                                    long enough,

would it soak unheeded into my mind,

ancient congealed Kool Aid spill,

from when we were young enough not to care

about sticky shoe soles?

We left that house and God only knows

who came to clean up after us

 

I’ll still wake to a faint rosy throb

every June when the A/C first kicks on.

Maybe you’ll pause on a sweltering street corner

Groping for a feeling just out of reach.

 

I think we knew everything once

Sometimes I feel almost at the edge of it �"

sometimes I think I remember

where we buried our grand library.

 

Now we speak with clumsy stuttered urgency

We are trying to catch up, find each other

We are digging up the backyard

tripping over our growth-spurt feet

 

Our stapled volumes, boxed collections,

cave murals, bottled specimens, cursed objects �"

I can just barely picture it, gathering dust.

Where did we ever find the room for it all?