It almost feels as though you were never here.
Probably because you were never here.

The lights were supposed to be a barrier.
Like salt for a snail,
like the sun for a vampire.
The warm white rope
casting a spell like a mother's womb.
But no no no not here.
A light house beacon and they clamored
like tripod aliens on a crusade.
Leaving my brother shaking as he stands
in plaid boxers with one sock on.
His body weight rests on that foot
the other too vulnerable for touch down.
Are they off me? Are they off me?
He can't stop yelling it,
though I'm pretty sure it was just one.
Its the cold hour of the night
where everything is grim and surreal.
Our skin is pulled tight from our austere faces
and bones poking out.
I am nine and he is eight,
but he's always cried easier.
His clothes had been stripped off so quickly
I know they don't need shaking.
I turn them in, back out, and shake them.
They're off you, brother.
He's embarrased, and wipes his face
as he pulls his shirt down to cover his skinny hips.
Next we shake everything.
A bait and switch and the lights are piled in the corner.
The needle monsters clamor to them as though possessed.
Their radiator humming is unnerving and peaceful.
Teeming is the word to describe it.
Their own Utopia.
They won the war,
we sleep unsoundly, swollen, in the darkness.

Why is everything always about money with you?
My best friend asks as we lean out
over the railing of the tattered tree house
my mom built before she left.
I'm offering to jump for fifteen dollars.
We are eleven years old and the summer heat
is turning us into real *******.
I tilt my head backwards to see the earth upside down
there are rusted bikes and shattered plastic buckets
splashed green from when we used to mow and faded from the sun.
There are walnuts and sticks that look like warty spears.
About twenty feet from the intended landing zone
a possum rots in the laser light slipping through the dark maple canopy.
Two days ago I bet the gang I would kiss it.
A breeze warms and cools us at the same time,
wafting the possum stench as we wave with it.
The support beams are rotting.
Last week we spray painted the worst spots
pink and green and dark purple.
We wrote our names too.
Sometimes we save our quarters for new wood.
Sometimes we laugh and smash the bowing boards.
Do termites love each other?
The neighbor girl told me they're going to Disney Land,
and last summer her dad bought her a second pony.
I have more dogs but no one's impressed.
I'm not actually sure that's a possum.
The horse broke its leg a few years back.
Mom tried to burn him but
Mr. Graber says animals are 70% water.
We picked through the bones until briers took over.
My shirt is stretched out in the neck
with a graphic of an 80's cartoon I've never heard of.
I'm not joking when I call it a hand-me-sixth.
As though I'd taken the jump
the wind is knocked right out of me.
I realize I've been staring.
I mean it to come out brave and angry but it comes as a squeak,
because I don't have any.
Because we don't have any.

Green little brother
throwing up because
he's too drunk
and he cut his hand,
never been brave with blood.

Green to buy greens
asking brother what he means.
Grass stained pants from mowing yards.
Been buying grass, been working hard.

Green grass, brother
do you remember being home?
The way dad let the fields grow
are the blades still tall as we are?
Let's go back so we can know.

Our house smells like paint
of five different colors.
We can't get the cats trained.
Call your mom, say I love her.
Hey babe while you were working
I cleaned off the sky light.
The roof is still leaking,
but at least we see stars at night.
And the grass grows high
because we're too poor to mow
and we laugh all night
acting out the trees we know.
You put my socks on for me
and I show you new dance moves.
You teach me about edible leaves,
and you help me find my shoes.
We can't afford to fix the floor
So honey let's go for a swim.
Babe the cat is at the door,
he'll howl till he gets in.
And you've been joking all June
that you're going to teach me how to cook
But hey, I can make my favorite foods.
You say we might have ginseng,
I say let's go check the woods.

Had I known they were weeds
would I have hated the reeds
that snaked up from the mud floor
changing pond to snarling sea?
Would I have hated the green vines
that wrapped around the gates?
Deemed the yellow flowers ugly,
and despised their honey taste?
Would I have declined the grape vines
that offered Tarzan Swings?
Would I have shushed all the starlings,
and let the cardinals sing?
Would I have ever listened
if told these lives were bad?
Could I have understood
these vines were not to have?
Thrown over the fences
and climbing cabin walls
as a little girl
its hard to tell these things are wrong.

It starts as an after school snack
you share a bag with your brothers.
But things change as you grow,
soon you're eating a whole bag.
Soon its not just a snack
but a meal.
Its not long before you're eating
the kernels too.
At first you try to chew them,
but soon its better to just swallow them whole.
Then you're using your thumbnail
to scrape the butter off of the bag.
It takes forty five minutes,
but you eat all of it.
That doesn't last long before
you're ripping up the bag
and licking the buttery insides.
From there its a slippery *****
and before you know it you're chewing
strips of the buttery bag like gum.
Then one day you do it.
You swallow,
and its not great but its not so bad.
So that's your breakfast from now on,
a bag of popcorn.