Still Here

 August 2016 (c)

 

This is the dream about you, Babe,

 

about how you visited me

in my 110-year-old

basement apartment—

 

The back brick wall failing.

Tree roots cracking asphalt waves.

Windows sooted by vehicle exhaust.

 

At 33 years to my 56, you are prettier

than the other boys that broke my heart.

 

My daughter was over with a friend,

I told them they needed to be nice.

Both grimaced.

 

Dishes piled in the sink,

cupboard door stained with coffee.

 

My ex-husband, who pops up

in every dream

as though we are still married,

I told him, too,

to be nice, to relax his fist.

 

Nice--

you don’t even question why…

 

You texted: here.

 

I went to the alley-side door—

a drywaller had finished troweling plaster

over the eight-step stairway. 

 

Plaster mud wet—

ankle deep—

the drywaller face-down in the white muck

I went to step around him, or on him,

his glare stopped me.

 

I went back for my phone—

I couldn’t find where I’d set it down.

 

The stairs imploded, rolling up

like a window shade.  

 

I ran out the Queen Anne Street side

so that I might find you. 

 

I walked too far,

all the way downtown to Benaroya.

The crowds were dressed for a show.

 

It rained.

Sun cast a harsh light where it could.

It was out of sequence.

 

On my way back you texted:

Still here, waiting.

I ran.

I jumped a train.

Caught the bus, finally.

 

I opened my door to a party

and someone suggested how strange

that I was the last to arrive.

It was already time to go. 

 

I found you, Babe

in the back room with another young boy. 

You had been playing building blocks,

race cars, hopscotch

 

all night.