The Downbeat of Leaves
I used to fly on a hammock's exhale when my soundtrack was soft as a frozen custard swirl and I was happy as the laundry-line shirts that danced with their partner the wind. I used to sing in the aisles of the A&P with butterfly merriment, on my bathtub stage with its mad blizzard of bubbles and echo, to the rhythm of my invincible sneakers, whose drum skin was simmering concrete littered with the downbeat of leaves. I used to love as often as the Good Humor man appeared in summer: the girls with their flirty skirts and prancing pony tales, the pretty TV lady whose sermon was, Hostess cupcakes mean everything, and my mom on those days when she misted herself with an atomizer of magic and smiled, crease-free and pretty as a picture, like her job was to greet my returning-hero daddy from the right-on-time six-o’clock train. Now, in these spun-out years my job of way too many mornings is to head for the docks to send off my next dearly departing passenger who waves goodbye to me f...
