*
on the birthday of a childhood friend, of which I was reminded by Facebook but had never really forgotten
*
the dog greeted me first
she was sienna
by name and color
my friend next
and then her mother
jeans and long hair
the kitchen
and its massive fireplace
big enough to roast a pig
the house was old
and felt more like my own
than my own
the past and the present
lived there together
without argument
jazz records on the shelves
classical music on the piano
above the Chiquita Banana stickers
paintings on the walls
with tilted points of view
and flower-gaudy colors
both parents painters
two studios to peek in
and feel small and colorless
an old, gray, small cat
wandering from room to room
like a fragile ghost
books I’d never seen before
and wanted
the minute I touched them
two sets of stairs
narrow and wide
so many ways to get everywhere
but in the summer
the house was no match
for the brook
paper bags of lunch
the sienna dog
following us across the fields
I didn’t always like
the sandwiches,
or not until I tasted them
I never remembered the way
but my friend led
as if there were signposts
after sun-filled fields, the wood
sometimes brambly
dark and disconcerting
and then, after a period
of approaching its sound
the brook
the brook
a swift, wide, cold, dark path
in a hot world
glacial rocks lined the streambed
the debate was always
shoes or no shoes
no shoes always won
despite the pain of the rocks
I was the less brave one
I whined as we walked
on the water
thrilled and aching
sneakers tied around my neck
I vowed to wear shoes next time
but I never did
I always chose the pain
over the inconvenience
of wet sneakers
to travel the road of the brook
to the paved road
took forever and no time
when we climbed out
and put our sneakers back on
the world seemed heavier
it was hard to believe
there would ever again
be adventures
we were tired of each other
and our feet hurt
and it was almost five o’clock
time to go home
where the water was a pool
with a smooth lined bottom
chlorine kept the water clear
and a filter removed
everything undesirable
only sometimes in the night
a possum drowned, or
some other unfilterable animal
my father would remove
the dead things with a pole
before we saw them
that was what it was like
at our house, that was what
it was like at my friend’s
thirty years ago
in the hills of Connecticut
ten miles apart
Red Dragonfly 