back when we were kids

Wrinkles



A year after dad after three days rose
from muddy canal water near town
drowned
mom packed-up and we moved out
the little white house which stood
center of a wide wheatfield, like a heartbeat,
out in the sticks on Washington Boulevard,
and we came to dwell in this dilapidated shack
on puncture-vined sandy corners
of Lincoln and Longview,
what else could mom do?

Inside: walls cringed with cracks and grease
smothered bowed ceilings
embedded with dead flies,
and wood floors moaned sad sighs
dressed in worn-out linoleum
with disemboweled pieces
patched with aluminum
and there were holes in spots
earth below you could see dog hairs confessing
where they hid in winter and in the distance stood
a tall outhouse, a box of splinters leaning like the
Tower of Pisa, a stones throw near a field tattooed
with tumbleweeds and busted-up yam boxes,
in time mom made the shack a cozy place for us
and accepting dad was never coming back
for four years we called that shack: Home.

Forty years later;
That toothless ol’ shack still stands
a different color
near ninety or older
squatted as it was back then,
and each time I pass by
it sacrifices a smile
wrinkles and all.