What do I remember?

 

The gritty slope of concrete,

Pressing into my tailbone,

Cold,

As I watched the silty water

Of the creek

Run, metal-scented,

From man-made tunnels.

 

I imagined myself

Elsewhere, but

There

I was.

 

My house,

My father’s house,

Down the street, was where I

Least/

Most

Wanted to be.

Not that there was a

Choice

For a teenage girl

To go anywhere

But where she was.

 

Now I watch a river

Two, three times the size,

Brown and thick

With manure,

Mud of

Men and animals,

And I cannot see where

It goes.

I want to be

There,

Just there,

And nowhere else.

I want

My mind to stay

Too.

 

But it goes to that

House,

Father’s House,

Dad’s House,

Where he

Isn’t anymore.

 

And then I want so much

More.

 

I smell the water

And can’t forget

The wanting.