I.

I am from paperbacks

            Poolmate liquid chlorine

                        And Gauloises cigarettes.

 

I am from abraded hardwood floors,

            Scraping feet lent a soundless echo,

                        Quiet forms of light through faded glass,

                                    Ashen firepits from summer’s past.

 

I am from the sweet breath of spring,

            Bougainvillea streamed along a wooden porch,

                        From sunny days spent under shadow’s cool,

                                    And the lazuli waters of Grandma’s pool.

 

II.

I am from dinner’s alone,

            Trips to the cinema screens,

                        From Doris and Tracy.

I am from love that’s colder than death,

            And the whistled tunes of songs from after the war,

From “If it should rain we’ll let it,”

            And, “I see life in rosy hues,”

I am from “Everyone hates someone to feel better,”

            Says Great-Uncle Johnnie, the army medic,

                        On cruelty abroad and at home.

 

III.

I am from Flint,

            Weeds overgrowing old dreams housed in concrete, brick, and steel

                        Sensing the future is never assured,

                                    And others will take your dreams if you let them.

From pictures of Grandma and Grandpa’s honeymoon to Paris in 1954,

            Soaked in the rain outside the Dôme de Invalides over Napoleon’s tomb,

                        To coming off the bus one day to see the family gathered round

                                    Grandpa’s final bed, his final breaths let out.

 

IV.

The glimmering whir of the Kodak carousel in the darkness,

            Now gathering dust in a drawer somewhere,

                        Still-life’s of some long since faded era,

and nothing that belongs to it remains.

I am from the rusted joints, the snowy meadows; plants of green and ones with machines, car frames, plastics, engines, piling towards the end, already junk when it’s barely alive, eaten by the air, shivering from the water, the life-giving poisons, the city of tomorrow.