Appleton, West Spencer Street, 5408

wisconsin, tonight, i write my love song to you:

appleton, west spencer street,
5408, where there was
but no longer is, a swing-set set in 1963.
how many times i begged for a push too
high, sent kicking in glee, then slip-sliding to green, my wind
knocked out, my wind
kicked in, the swing, the trampoline,
the weeping willow that one day,
torn out, root-ripped, tornado, tornado, tornado,
a midwestern love affair, uprooting my willow
my whimsy willow letting me link up her whispy limbs, lending
licks of sky across my cheeks but always sent slipping,
then slip, slip, and swept away.
the treehouse we built, of what tree, i cannot recall, but the stem,
thick, sucking in every clumsy nail, the transplanted limbs,
the frankenstein form we figured, cousins
figuring together, and then tied to, the still ground-struck
weeping willow,
kid-made zipline we flew
along, until the storm,
until our willow was whisked away.
tulips in yellow, pink, orange, red, white, and other colors i know
i remember because i imagined,
implanting in snow, my grandmother's hands,
then sprouting in spring, along every line of the house,
5408 west spencer street, lean in too far and collapse sneezy and dreamy and pollen-
soaked, so sweet, the too soft grass, and also:
a backyard shed,
a vegetable garden,
rhubarb pulled fresh out from the soil,
stewed soft, still bitter, but soon sugar-soaked,
a pie, both biting and kissing
your tongue.
a chicken coop,
a hammock,
a fire pit, the remains, a grave of burned marshmallow bits,
the best.
a kitchen filled with glinted brass
pots, brass pans, brimming
mashed potatoes, sausage gravy,
heavy cream, just-churned butter and
freshly kneaded bread and
doughboys galore!
the brown basement and the secret room,
a drawer filled with coins (we kids, we cousins, we stole)
and a drawer filled with jokes, whoopee cushion, a springing
mongoose in a box,
we woke, we killed,
the great grandfather clock out in the hall, a real coo-coo-cooing cockadoodley do
a sectional, twelve-seater, 1970s burnt orange, velvet velour,
every cushion sunken in for every seat sat loved in this house.
there was the ditch in the driveway, we sent
boats of paper, pop bottles
choked with notes, some float, some sunk
what messages we wrote now forgotten, but
the mustard yellow, rusted camper set steady out back
in which we played, slept in as if another home of our own, except when we went running out, imagined grizzly bears and camped better back in grandma and grandpa’s beds.
there was the wheelbarrow, rusted, unmovable, but ready for the oregon trail.
the lawn-mower gently culling the grass, our slow moving
go-cart, our first fantastic set of wheels.
spring/summer/newborn grass, ever soft as a blanket
stars more blinding than the moon, glint-glittering,
a race between two
same and separate spectacular sets of fireflies.
also, a beauty salon in the house, grandma's
weathered, but
ever-working hands
a small space encased with endless
movie star-making supplies
a bathroom filled with her own secret drawers
mary kay makeup and gilded jewelry galore.
she took us on trips to the small grocery store
any/all pop we could want
cream soda, black cherry, razzy root-beer delight
a fridge upstairs brimming with venison and blizzards
and dilly bars, cherry-soaked, candy-shell coated, endlessly better
than any first kiss.
a deep freezer in both basement and garage, more game
and milk custard ever enough and always
gizzards for every future packer game.
in summer, rummage sales, lemonade and baked goodies sold at the start front of the lawn, no sign, just cups, sugar-coated, no ice,
freckles and paper bowls, halfway full all dimes, some quarters,
a few dollars begging more.
old women bargaining down their two dollars to one.
round the corner, there is verna's house,
the neighborhood florist,
her home a thick choke of flowers,
real and fake, house painted little red riding hood red, you can
call her for funerals, a baby baptismal, christenings, weddings,
here, near, or somewhere around-by.
and the dead architect who built his house entirely of glass, and
the abandoned airport, twelve streets down,
some wing things left, artifacts from when the family still had
their feet on the land, toes tucked just beneath the
funked fertilized dirt
lost coins, a willow's left tears, lemonade stains on gravel
cabbage sprouting every other autumn, yellow angels in the last room, down
the hall, blue shadow shimmering on
toilet seats, a gold stud stuck in the tub's drain,
the treehouse only a few planks and a zipline now demarcating:
where you are,
where you were,
where you wish you could be,
where you wish, where we wish,
we could
have always
stayed.





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© 2024 Monica Lewis