Here, where a girdle clothes-pinned to a clothesline
disappeared. Here, where a mother kept asking,
have you seen it? Have you seen my girdle? I hung it
on the line. Here, where a father decided every blessed
forsythia must be hacked to the nubbins. A cardboard box
teemed with laboratory frogs: when the first one died
the children were solemn; when the last one croaked
they took turns swinging its steel gray corpse at the pear tree
till one of its legs took hold to a sturdy branch. After
a downpour, mud-orange slugs worked their way
up the garage; Joanie Hoppel, in pastel pink chalk,
If you have an egg, get lost. There was burning meat,
an anti-Semitic who bought a house across the street
from a synagogue, and, by the way, did you know chrysalis
derives from the Hebrew harus, meaning gold? Here,
where a father feared what would happen to his mind
if one of his children died. Here, where a girdle, without
fanfare or explanation, fluttered from a hapless sky,
landed in the pocket of a mother’s robe as she settled in
for daily dose of Rocky Road and Guiding Light.