Until the end of the sentence my reader waits,
and I, myself, wait—
to go back to that house of first rooms, of room
shared with my brother, of split-level and landing
and railing, of comfort and corn fields, creek—speak,
house, speak: when I was six or seven I hid under my mother’s
ironing board: it stood like a fort, the triangle
of its wooden legs around me; I gathered my animals
under it in the early morning hours, I did not wake
my parents up; the iron was on and its chord hung down
(this was before automatic shut offs: who made the
automatic shut off?)—eventually things fall; I have
left my subject until the end: the iron fell, branded
my foot with its silver edge: my left foot, the devil’s
side; but I always liked the way the scar streaked
down my foot, red lightening, dividing its map
into east and west, all the way down, even the toe;
that burn filled a blister that burst in the night—
going deeper into the night I remember my mother
caring for that foot like it was hers: silver cream,
loose bandages and medical tape, soothing words;
it still turns blue in cold water, like child-lips
after ice cream—my sister had no ironing board:
in the widest of all possible places, on the shore,
blue before us, first night at the beach, she told
me everything; it was hard to speak
to my brother again; it is hard to let him love
his nephews, my sons; they are the subjects
we leave to the end—
under a night sky, they skim like pelicans.
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