In a cloud of Love’s Baby Soft, with bowls of mint
ice cream her father brought us on her daybed of ‘80s roses
before he bounded to the basement to paint skulls and barbs on helmets,
we had our fun. A yellow truck with a swan on it
delivered the ice cream. All was clean, even their smoking. Pristine
wall-to-wall and clean towels, the drenched tips
of Crayola markers, and then I was home, expelled from the cul-de-sac
and back to where a natural spring dribbled
and raspberries soured amid broken glass. A saxophone
case hit me on the way to practice. The reed trilled, I was kissed,
his red hair angelic, the surprise of it. To the Christmas dance
I wore velvet. My aunt let me choose the pattern
from a heaving book in the mall. She sewed in a closet. She had red hair,
and I now see felt beleaguered. I see the pins in her mouth,
her foot pumping, mothering, tying a crinkled gold bow.