Why We Need Monopoly


How often do you get to be a racecar
skidding into Vermont
on 250 horsepower
the unlikely chance
to be a Scotty dog that owns property
barking in the front yard
of a house on Tennessee?
When else does a lowly thimble
win second prize in a beauty contest,
my father saying every time
I picked that card
“Who could be lovelier than you?”

 
He always chose the fashionable hat
banking on lucky dice rolls
fortunate advances to Boardwalk
even welcomed a rest in jail.
I swung my legs against the chair rung
hoarding money in brick-neat piles
happy to buy a light bulb
while round and round
my battleship cruised dry land
constantly docking
at his fine hotels.
___________________________


Marking Time                          
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

You've been baby-pinks for so long
now at nine
on the rim of your first real decade
I want to cull perfect words
but I can tell you only
that some days will be lumpy
like awnings of you are sticking out all over
and always pedal faster than coasting
but know when to coast.


I still blow on skinned knees yet
I'm never quite sure what age you are –
lying on your bed we talk like teenagers.
The wax burns so fast,
the wick is shorter than it ever seems.
Please don't tell me when I tie the last bow.
___________________________



Leaving Summer Camp

 
Every Saturday across the summer
counselors pack children for home
roll sleeping bags
with adult tightness
crooked lanyards and bad pottery
stuffed into pillow cases
big yellow buses
chaw over gravel
come to swallow the anguished
squeals of leaving
and by noon they are gone.

 
The cabins sit still as portraits
dark-eyed windows look in
last spots of the wet-mop
disappearing from cabin floors
bunk mattresses leaned up
tick with teenage secrets
the trees continue
branches strongly out
listening for new buses.