I Will Always Be Right There

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I am in this old house

That’s me 

framed in the window

Still a boy

Dreamy as a Gainsborough

Watching the seasons twirl by

Like Isadora on the wind

Standing beneath the sloping weight of a sad-eyed eave


The house 

which was once

rather imperious

Especially when it cackled at squalls

Or dismissed the night

Like it was a silly schoolgirl

is bony and hollow-cheeked now 

Fragile as a scrapbook rose

And haunted by ghosts

Which are all the regrets that

simply refuse to die


But I haven’t aged

I never will.

I will always be right there

In the window

To the very end

Me:

The mad inventor of memories to come

Who can still hear 

The mischief of cartoons

The exhale of an exhausted shampoo bottle

And the insistence of radio static

Until the dial suddenly found

Frank Sinatra  

Clear as a bell

singing 

The Nearness Of You

Which coaxed my mom

to turn away from the sink

and nuzzle her nose into the fidelity of my dad’s soft shoulder

And together

They began to dance

On the linoleum floor.

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