Kirkpatrick Drive
I remember the summers better than the
winters –
playmates with names long since
forgotten
push-pops and Kool-Aid, always outside
and when it rained, we watched lakes
forming
in the front, beside the crabapple
tree.
In the back, the plum tree never gave
us fruit
but it held its limbs above the sandbox
to shade our play.
And down the street, beside the pond
feeding apples to the neighbor’s horse,
Mom taught us how
– keep your hand flat so Ginger won’t
bite your fingers –
and on the walk back, we couldn’t
resist the sweetness of honeysuckle
never enough to satisfy.
Blueberries, in June, hung heavy on the
branch
dark as the sky at nine, when Mom would
send me to bed.
My brother could stay up later.
At the square, we’d find the train, and
I would climb the engine
and still smell old metal on my hands
when we would stop for lunch.
Some days we climbed Kennesaw Mountain
Some days we drove to the top.
Two cannons, pointing north, kept the
Yankees at bay
as I manned my post, like any good
confederate would.
And the nights were never silent
grassy fields of war would hum
with an energy matched by the heat
lightning above.
School would soon be starting up, with
it’s clean hallways
ceiling tiles and
fluorescent lights
and I would think back to the smell of
summer grass
to my brother’s blond hair in the sun
to hummingbirds feeding on sugar-water
and to the taste of honeysuckle
never enough to satisfy.
berserai 