We dig in the leftovers 
bin at the lumberyard 
and take another turn at nailing, 
screwing and gluing our childhood 
together again, 
without the slightest aptitude 
or way to measure results. 
Our jury of one pronounces us 
the winner and awards the ribbon. 
We see a past that’s not so 
complicated, leading to 
a present that isn’t this one 
with its nest of tangles, on to 
a future that can never be that easy. 
Eye-witness evidence about 
lights, nights and fights 
we lived through is weak, 
ask any judge about memory. 
Your mother in her housedress 
kept herself out of jail 
while raising you and the tulips, 
but things could have gone 
awry any time a cocksure witness 
took the stand. One old woman 
in a housedress might look to him 
like any other. 
Unindicted to the end, 
she showed the way 
and got aboard her free ride 
on a westbound train out of here. 

—From Just Enough Clothes (Garden Oak Press, 2014)

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