One Summer
1.
Kevin. You went off to work, I was alone in your
apartment, an apartment on a street corner
in Washington D.C., my first
trip alone. You gave me your key,
said you’d be home after work. And so I left,
closing the iron gate door I was so
fascinated with behind me. I walked through
campus, stretched out in the sun. I tucked the map
in my pocket, walked through
M street, took the correct turns. I remember someone
on the street complimented my shirt. I was almost sure
I had been in this town before.
And then I met this fellow, tall, unlike you,
and we went out, and I knew I didn’t
have a care in the world, all my ties were
almost broken, I was almost free. And I’d never see
this man again. Maybe I’d let him kiss me.
And as I walked down the street that night
with him, I skipped. And he liked me that much more.
2.
Sheri. The heat of Arizona smelled like burning flesh.
I met your roommate, your friends, drank at the Coffee
Plantation, iced mocha coffees. And I met
you-know-who,
I still don’t want to say his name.
He kept me occupied, no, he made me feel alive,
alive to someone who had never lived before,
alive those long five days. I could still mark the day
on my calendar, the day my life was supposed to
change, the day I was supposed to be free. But
it was supposed to be something
good, I was
supposed to start caring for myself. Then why
does a part of me regret it?
He bought me a rose the day I left. And you
took pictures of us.
I thought that morning that it would be justice
to never hear from him again. To leave it at that.
But then I had to call him from the airplane
on the trip home. Why?
3.
Joe. You had to be cruel to me, just this once. I thought
we had been through enough, went through
our own little hells already because of each
other. I know
we had our differences, but I was looking forward to
seeing you, to seeing southern California, the
stores, the glamour, the beaches, the
commercialism. And you, you had to cart me away
with your religious troops to the wilderness,
leaving me at the campsite while you went off
to church. And I sat there for days,
watching us, watching us
become bloodthirsty, we were trying to
hurt each other, we were
like animals, you starting your life with me in tow.
And I saw the redwood forests.
4.
Douglas. I never imagined how beautiful the
east coast could be, rolling hills curling one state
into another. We’d drive up a hill in your
truck and I would lift my head, my chin as high as I could
in anticipation to try to see
the other side, the sloping down of those hills.
I remember walking along the beach
in Maine, restored buildings lining
the rocky shore, the fog so thick
you couldn’t see fifty feet in front of you. And people
were suntanning. And I photographed the
lighthouse - how do they work in the fog
like this?
It’s so thick, thick like the cigarette smoke coming from
the inside of your truck when we would drive
to antique shops in New Hampshire. Thick, like a
powerful force overcoming someone, that
holds you there, that doesn’t let go. Like us.
5.
A week before the smoke and the hills
I was in the Midwest and
my father was screaming at me,
two weeks before I was thousands of miles away
dreaming of someone else. And it wasn’t a month ago
when I was skipping past the old Kennedy house,
where movies were made, where this all began.
And now, in this truck with you,
I lean back, watching the scenery travelling past me
streamline into blurred lines of color,
and I think of marriage. Maybe with you,
if time wears on, but probably not, I just
think of marriage, to someone. Marriage,
streamlining life into a blur. Settling down.
Settling. It’s funny how your surroundings change you.
And soon, I know, I will go back home,
carrying my possessions in a tweed bag
with duct tape on the handle, to get back to
something.
Driving through the plains to go back to life,
it will all be the same again.
U.S. Government Copyright
Chicago Poet Janet Kuypers
on all art and all writings on this site completed
before 6/6/04. All rights reserved. No material
may be reprinted without express permission.
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