Ears foster memories as if by motherly instinct.
Remember that age?
It had to be a chubby-cheeked decade of earthy feet and belly tickles,
moving back and forth between creators,
Sunday morning CCD class taught me how a father is more than one face,
So I prayed to the others, knees on a rental’s carpet, fingers to fingers:
Oh, God!
The past cannot decide whether to stay buried or return in nostalgic whiffs:
good times smell like lavender and salty air
bad, of cigar smoke and vodka stains
Oh, God!
I cling to the yellow of yesterday like the newborn I once was
held gently onto the ears of a sun-colored stuffed bear
Her name is Summer!
I declared and we learned to move
back and forth like the waves,
sounds, much like smells, carry dates like bottled milk.
It is 2008 again
and I am dialing your cell phone number I memorized
like a vocabulary word for the literature test,
9, as in my favorite number…
We remember through remembering something else.
Oh, God!
I can still hear the song that reached through the New Jersey night
wrapping its arms around me as if you were there to do it yourself.
Sleepless pillows in a neighborhood where every brick mimics the other.
Tears knew those walls my sister and I painted mismatched colors.
But that song—how it still reaches for me when it plays,
in a bar,
in traffic,
at the coffee shop…
Proud Mary keep on burning/rolling, rolling, rolling on the river
Tina Turner sang to me every other weekend,
before your voice met my ears,
reminding me that
I will be home soon.
Just a few more sleeps,
just a few more high notes.