Past the old factories, the plants, the myth of white flight
The long stretch of riding slow or cutting up down 38th St.
The cheering bleachers, the steam coming off the top of
Pawpaw’s coaching headset Daddy got him for Christmas,
Daddy hollering over my book, the shiny helmet collisions
and the developing harvest moon, past the old parking lots
where we smoked for the first time, the snowed-over fields,
the monument of soldiers and sailors, the flags and bumper
stickers with the names of lakes, past the overgrowth in
Mamaw’s lawn, the smell of her yellow cake in the oven,
the last of the cicadas still crying in her tree. What is the
opposite of burial? Is it what brought both sides of our family
North, past the dreams of walking into the water and growing
wings? Is it what sent Mamaw and Pawpaw jumping over the broom?
It is what drives a body to leapfrog a concrete bollard in the middle
of the sidewalk, or what made Charles Page, a timberman, build
an airship. And then, past that, the patent he never sold, after it was
stolen and he never built another one again. Past retiring, helping
your neighbors, growing their crops and building them coffins,
past the cousin coming home from the county, your cousins
coming up from the country, the family reunion park with everyone
too comfortable to notice it has changed. Past Crown Hill
Cemetery which is half the size of Eagle Creek from up here,
Daddy hums a hymn to keep from crying, you clear dirty boxes,
separate letters stuck to newspaper clippings, peel the exoskeleton
from between the pages of an old almanac, tear the fibers underneath
the word sea––See, you circled the cul-de-sac on your bike for the last time.
Now, above it all, what do you know about that?