did i tell you this?

I do not have to waltz back to my childhood on Pennsylvania Street

to know that then the air was cleaner. That everyone had mice

and black mold; that you lived with both tenants

and found yourself, half asleep, licking the brown backs of both. And had

I known that you could become nothing by writing

but a person who wastes time and is good at doing so

or one who still wishes they owned a green El Camino. Excuse me.

I think someone is messaging me on FACEBOOK. My friend Alex

with her multitude of hurts

and a left eye whose eyelid sags above it like the cape of Sir Graves

or those first pack of pictures for the Polaroid,  where a few slimy back

still life's lay on the end table like the dead

before booze loosened up my father's grip and tadah!  All that makes us

human is captured for a dust-laden, dateless photo album that sits

beneath the iron bowl of filberts from the Christmas of 07 (and i'm being kind)

with it's metal staff to use when the little nut bits of life cling to the sides of the shell.

She's going to Atlanta with two new sun dresses and matching flip flops for both

and a new asymmetrical weave and her fingernails done up

and I remind her that this is real life and it's hot as f**k in Georgia in June

and to take some sun screen and drink a lot of fluids. "I am coming back"

she messages me with an audible alert,

"no one stays gone from this eternal light, forever".

Reviews

[Rita L. Sev]

The persistence of memory, here... This poem is vivid to the depths, Dana.

[h d e rushin]

thank you so much Rita......I love you so....dana

[Lydia Shutter]

"No one stays gone" isn't that the truth? No memory stays gone either and when you tell yours, your intricate imagery and attention to detail are riveting. Dana, I could see those sundresses and shiny nails brightening up the dark scene. Mice and black mold....my goodness, you have been through quite a bit in your life and when you write of it, you rise above it. Absolutely incredible write. Lydi**

[h d e rushin]

thank you so much Lydia......and good morning to you..I heard it was almost 95 degrees in Georgia....if so, keep cool..Love you....dana

[Lydia Shutter]

I am in South Florida. It is in the nineties and with the humidity, it feels more like the 100's. Still, I love living here and I am pretty much used to it after 47 years!

[Ed Hart]

well, it's easy for you to weave these scarfs, 'cuz you got all that yarn, right there at your finger tips where your needles never cease their pearl and curl, and you with busy eyes search out the dust corners where phrases lie one upon the other...cuz black folks, they got this other thing them starched white ghosts couldn't ever understand, cuz white pain is locked up in a local generation or two...they have no understanding of centuries, of eons, of forevers stacked in closets just waiting for some memory to pop right out of the Cheerios box like a willie mays baseball card, and tell a story that never stops bleeding...

[h d e rushin]

the blues is the blues...I too didn't believe this until I heard Roscoe Holcomb sing it. Then I said, human suffering may be different, it's just said in different dialects. Thank you my friend for your continued insight. dana