About the things we treasure

We Played Monopoly
(for my brother, in England)

Do you remember how we played
Monopoly the long days of summer?
You were always the racing car,
I was always the flat iron,
but I moved faster than you and
always got Mayfair and Park Lane first
and you ended up bankrupt or in jail.

Well, yes,
I did my time, too, but
I came out with arms full of 500-pound notes,
rows of hotels, utility works and railway stations,
and you’d get in a pet
and not want to play any more –
at least, not till next time.

Do you remember it the same way?
Can you smell the rosehips and flowering blackcurrant,
the algae on the pond at the bottom of our garden,
mum’s homemade lemonade,
dad’s pipe tobacco smoke,
Tim’s wet doggy rompings?

Probably not
and
does it matter?

Well, yes,
it does, now,
now that our childhood home is gone
along with our parents,
and our childish selves are buried
somewhere
under the dirt of so many years of work
and child rearing and
trying not to go bankrupt or end up in jail.

Do you remember the smell that game had?
Sweaty palms, dusty attics,
boiled cabbage?

The box was bent at the corners
and had ruffles of yellowing tape from
so much mending, so much play.

The lid was wrecked from
being tossed around the room like a Frisbee,
or worn as a banker’s hat,
or made into a sled for the long-suffering cat.

Where did it go?

If we had it still
would you play?
Be a kid with me again,
brother and sister, loving and hating
in a Monopoly-scented tangle of
‘he did that’ and
‘she said what?’ and
‘he can’t be the banker!’ and
‘I don’t want to play any more!’

FIRST PUBLISHED BY www.chicagopoetry.com