I Remember

Doing a little memory/writing exercise here, tonight. To pluck out from the wizened head something new. Humor me, now.

I remember:

The winding stairs and Sophie's head at the top of your shoulder, her laugh when you "baaaa'd" like a sheep.

Sophie sitting in her swing, home from the hospital, her right arm useless. For the very first time.

Sitting in a rocking chair in the small upstairs room, nursing the baby while it rained outside. The patter on the asphalt balcony, the small window open.

Walking behind the girl in the wheelchair as she was pushed by the doctor, down the long white hallway with closed doors on either side.

Running from the movie theatre where we'd just seen "Diva" and it was raining and we were breathless and steamed up the car.

You went back to Canada but first told me about the older woman you'd been seeing. She seemed astonishingly old at thirty (we were barely twenty) and I felt sick to my stomach.

The letter, typed on white paper and worn thin at the creases. Transparent love.

Standing on the steps of old Wilson library and looking out over the expanse of lawn. You compared yourself to a sabre-toothed cat and claimed that you would eat me up.

The boy with hepatitis C who wore a beautiful suit and wasn't allowed to kiss me.

Walking the three blocks to Lexington at 5:00 in the morning to catch the uptown bus and my job -- the rats at the bottom of the stairs, the smell of chicken bones roasting.

Lying in the coat closet, pregnant and nauseous.

The girl under the umbrellas, lying in the wet, banging her head on the pavement.

The girl in Florence, lying on the pavement, the pool of blood spreading and the Italian police screaming, their mouths ignorant holes. The sound of my shoes on the cobblestones when I ran.

Lucid dreaming -- the house of many rooms and walking through them, looking, looking. Always the bed.