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Through Weeping Willows

Laundry waving from a clothesline.

Your mother and grandparents harvesting home-grown items
for sale to neighborhood grocers -

oxheart cherries, blueberries, blackberries, gooseberries,
raspberries, plums, squash, cabbage, cauliflower, corn.

Rhode Island Reds bickering.

A blacksmith's rhythmic hammering.

The baldy-sour haircuts
dungarees - rolled-up of course -
US Keds black canvas high-tops.

The Wiffle ball tournaments that stretched across the summer
bringing neighbors out onto their stoops
fanning themselves

even long-legged Trudi
who lived alone in a first-floor flat
cigarette in one hand, Zippo in the other
in curlers, mascara, and white short-shorts
zippered in back.

The black Cadillac
and the older gray-haired gentleman
who picked her up every other evening at nine.

The nights you spent waiting
shade drawn
sucking on a Tipparillo
pilfered from May's News on the corner
a front for numbers.

Worm's Billiards.
The endless games of Nine-Ball

and Steve's Hot Dog Palace
where you could get two all the way
for fifty cents.

The empty pigeon coop next door

and the day you demolished it
with a sledgehammer for fifty bucks
after the owner's widow got the okay from her son
who had escaped
with an MBA and a Mercedes.

Your uncle, too, defected out of boredom
taking with him a clipboard
with plans for a good job
and a good woman
leaving behind your aunt and cousin.

Footprints in the sand leading to a house overlooking a river:

the house you lived in briefly
with a woman who auditioned for the part of your wife
and who enjoyed mowing the lawn on a green riding mower
trailed by two yapping yellow Labs.

You quibbled over the selection of songs
but kept hearing the same tune in your head
over and over and over.

Your ninety-year-old neighbor removing the trunk
of a weeping willow with a maul.

Your father in his blue work shirt
sleeves rolled up
pockets bulging with pens, pencils, paper
the endless jottings.