Summer Day One 1955

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Summer

Day one

1955

Setting: a small two-bedroom flat

in a garden apartment building

in Queens

surrounded by a pasture of concrete.

goldfish do their pond laps

like old men at the Y

trains

a block away

stop

load 

and deposit

silent movie robot men with hats

on the hour

The German shepherd on the corner yelps

his marching orders

like a commandant


I’m small

wearing flappy shorts

bare-chested

blonde

nimbly balancing on 

an invisible highwire

a teeny Wallenda 

in socks

as the Platters sing “Only You”

on the Dumont  television set

The parakeets

Pepi and Gigi

flutter and twirl

like they’re on American Bandstand


Sunlight

sneaks in like a cheating husband

striking the framed painted portraits of my

sister and I

like a Hollywood Klieg light


My mom enters 

solemnly 

for the changing of the living room upholstery guard

smelling like instant Maxwell

a top note of aldehydes and bergamot

and a just vanquished Viceroy

with a lipstick tattoo

which has taken a Johnny Weissmuller swan dive into

the pool of a Bone China cup


With a magician’s flourish

she whips off the winter-grim slipcovers

bellows Voila! 

and steps aside to reveal

Hawaii

with hula-dancers 

ukulele strumming natives

and more pineapples than 

the Produce Department at Key Food


And just like that, 

for the next three months

we will live in the Tropics.

And just like that 

days will promenade by

at the languid pace of a parasol twirl

traffic will tumble like tides 

ice cream bells will chime

from their mobile steeples

asphalt will simmer

bikes will transport us like rocket ships

baseball announcers will become our favorite uncles

and forever will

for now

feel like a very real thing

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