A romantic idea:
our own childhood memories
should be unfiled
and laid on the floor when
mother’s guilt waves its rusty sword.

See this: this is when I tried to catch a bullfrog
in a glistening summer stream with my friend.

And this, this is the story I wrote,
under step-dad’s desk
and after being marinated in lots of storybook fantasies and
a little Christianity
for years and years.

Here is a small collection of uncertainties
and pain that look rather pretty when they catch the light.

And all of these, right there, are the moments of solitude
in cars and woods and busses and libraries and orchards and snow
that enable a woman
to think that she can live a life of the mind.

Like a hand that polishes
a banister’s knob
she will touch this life’s days so quickly
and only mostly remember the feel of some curious artifacts
as she comes down the stairs
to her new day.

This is just one idea.