& no, I won’t go back

As published in Grub Street

To roads twisting toward the lake 
or maple trees spitting spinning jennies 
onto brick-brown houses crawling with ivy

& yes i used to dream we’d live in that one,
there, with the gabled roof & soft evening light
like the house where we grew up but better not –

lie & say i can’t remember walking these same streets
legs too short to skip the crack careful, don’t break 
your mother’s – back then far meant further 

than a stone’s throw & far was far further 
than i’d like to be from home – i can see her cruising 
down the sidewalk on her cherry-red tricycle

which the neighbor boy buried 
in shiny round stickers of a fat red bird
singing victory for a baseball team, but i thought

they sang for me, those plump red cuties
i thought they were cheering me on as i sped
down the sidewalk not too far perching bright on 

meaty branches keeping me –
safe from cars breezing down the block 
& bats razing the oak tree at dusk

which sent my father railing about rabies
each night my mother kept the door cracked
swore the light would keep me 

safe – even when i couldn’t see the red bird 
& the gabled roofs & the green trees & the bats 
& the spinning jennies 

far away was so close to home 
now close means further than three hundred miles    
in a city where sparrows and pigeons run rampant

& rarely do I cross paths with a cardinal 
& no, I won’t go back 
& if I do I think I’ll find

birdsong ringing spectral 
mine mine mine