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I'm helping my mother pull up dead annuals,
looking down at a frost dried
browned bush
and finding myself thinking of you.
I am writing you a letter
about how ten years ago
you turned eight and had a doll cake.
Barbie sitting in the thick of her sweet
purple, cream and sugar gown
accented with yellow and pink candy roses.
That was summer
the creek so low and shallow
the catfish were stuck among the rocks
and we just watched them gasp for air,
afraid to touch them,
too scared of Death.
It was the summer we went to Beaver Island
and biked all the way up Witches Finger Hill, into town.
At night we canoed out on the lake
to see the aurora, listen to coyotes,
and make wishes on shooting stars.
That same summer I moved a whole block
to a freshly built house,
and your mother
helped my mother plant rosebushes
in our brand new lawn.
They are hardy roses
with small flowers that don't smell like perfume,
but faintly honey-like.
They're always in bloom at your birthday
and sometimes a bud holds on
until November, for mine.
Not this year though.
The frost has already turned the last blossom brown.
The bush looks so dead,
I want to pray for it,
even though I know it will be in full glory again
next summer.
I cannot be so sure for you.
I'm writing because I heard your memory
is failing.
That it paints everyday in gray
and the past in splatters.
I promise to help you remember.
There haven't been catfish in the creek for years
now.
They disappeared about the same time
girls started getting raped on the rail alongside the water.
And the Island isn't the same either;
It hanged almost as much as you, growing up too fast
loosing its senses and gaining a high-speed ferry boat.
Remember how we would find fairy rings and sit waiting,
sometimes past dark even,
that was exciting enough.
Before you became dependent, before
nature lost its magic and every waking moment
was too dull to bear
and you decided life wasn't beautiful enough
on its own. I know dust has rotted your brain
and you drank that one time
till you forgot your name,
which is why you didn't respond
when your mother shook you
screaming "Rosie Rosie Rosie!"
Which is how I know you forgot the kittens
in the pool table pockets
and stealing the neighbors sunflowers
or watching Bye Bye Birdie
learning every last word. But my memory still works,
and I said I would help you remember
Everything, but especially roses.
Let's remember that this bush will bloom again
and not think about what went wrong. |