A Seattle snowfall is rare and
after two days of it
I bundle to walk around Kinnear and
up to Galer.
We wandered these hills enough,
those mid-70s summers,
stoned and mute, and even then,
when we had all the energy of youth
we had to stop to breathe at each
block’s crest.
I can hear it all the way to here,
our labored breathing,
branches scratching and sparrows chirp-chipping.
By the time I hike to your old
house on Seventh,
I need to shake snow, like white
ash, off my sleeves.
I am so determined to walk past
your house,
a frequent tourist, I return year
after year
as though it defines Seattle.
Instead of recalibrating my trek I
trudge in front of the man
who set up a tripod to photograph the
sound and the snow.
There are people everywhere
snapping photos,
that is how beautiful it is where
you used to live.
The hedge your mother planted has
grown
into an impenetrable nine-foot wall
The tennis court lot was sold,
crowded now
with another four-story, five bath.
And what’s with the gridiron fence closing
off
the yawning garden and stone path,
and bamboo hinting at modernity, an Asian
aesthetic?
I have finally arrived, Glenda, at
the moment I know
with dead certainty I will never
buy this house for us. I will never
inhabit
your mother’s room with its
spectacular view
of storms lighting up the sound, of
the grain elevator,
ships creeping out to feed people around
the world.
Never again the luxury to have you
for myself,
to dance to Radar Love in your room that faces
the stairwell up Lee. John and Mark
used to sit midpoint,
smoke, and wait for you to show.
And who could fault them? I am a
ghost,
hovering there with them, longing for
a glimpse
of you in all your fifteen-year-old
perfection—
but it didn’t.,
I can’t look up—
the flakes sting my eyes,
and by Galer
I am sobbing.
