Swimming Pool of Marbles
I was worried we were on the verge of the second Great Depression.
“We own our house, right?” I asked my dad in panicked voice
because my roommate told me everything would be okay,
IF you owned your house.
“No, hun-knee, weyare steel making payments on it.”
My family has lived at 5 Misty Court for thirty years.
That’s why five is my favorite number.
That house is home base, my objective correlative, my constant.
I know it like a lover.
The grey side paneling, busted doorbell and glass shattered
by a softball I swung at and made contact for the first time.
I wept as white paint dried erasing years of measurements
stacked up like used textbooks.
I know the map of the creaky floorboards from sneaking in past curfew,
determined my parents wouldn’t find out, but they always asked.
I couldn’t lie ever since I threw that browned apple over the fence
And you spanked me for saying I ate it, core and all.
That doesn’t sound like a bad idea now—to consume something whole,
seeds and all—planting a life force in your belly.
Please, don’t ever move. I can’t afford to buy that house from you.
There are too many memories—a swimming pool full of marbles:
Of water balloon fights, running through sprinklers,
shooting fireworks off the back deck and exploding G. I. Joes
with firecrackers
Of charting undiscovered territory beyond my backyard
and walking through sewage pipes because I liked the dark
and hearing my own voice echo back
Of playing truth or dare and kissing a boy for the first time
and feeling so guilty that I cried innocence into my pillow
and begged my mom not to tell dad
Of our house getting struck by lightning after Christmas,
all new electronic toys fried and nightmares of outlets
Of playing detective in my dad’s sport coat
and watching my neighbor cry after she found her mom in the tub,
Bathed in her own blood
Of going to the park after dark to see a boy
who pushed me so fast on the merry go round that I felt tipsy
until my dad spotted me with his headlights and made me go home
Of being on the swim team before I was old enough
And finding my dad’s rifle in the closet while playing hide and go seek
Of kissing my first boyfriend in his car parked outside my house,
Of crying my eyes dry when he left for college.
Of my brother’s friend sleeping in my bed and feeling deceptive
because I had a secret.
Of watching my brother cry because his best friend died in his sleep
Of being angry at my dad because he gave me Sense and Sensibility
for my birthday and I didn’t even like Jane Austen
Of my sister’s baby falling down the stairs
Of holding my mom’s hand at the kitchen table after the doctor called
saying she had cancer in her bone.
Of telling her I’d never leave her again.
Of my mom telling me she never wanted to hold me back.
Of sleeping in her bed that night and confessing we’d never been so scared.
All the tears, all the shouts, all the meals, all the goodbyes
This is one lover I will never release.
