Only-Child Smelling Best-Friend's Older-Brother-Age

Let us make an adventure
of how little we deserve the spring's
return.

When my mother calls
telling me not to bother
with anything special for Mother's Day
but reminding me as well
in that same breath—

there is a genius in cunning timidity.

I'm made timid by the robin's relocated stare.

I am undeserving of all that is
re-awoken

and unsure what must occur
to allow myself to
re-awake
as well.

Only in my memory do I recognize
the plump currency
juiced out and dripping
from all things.

Only there am I deserving.

When my dad sells the house
involuntarily

I torment to imagine what we will find
in the backyard shed
permanently matting down the
early June grass.

Perhaps some force
will have collected there
an eternal catalog of things thought
discarded:

the broken-arm lawsuit cast,
Teemu's collar and lock of fur,
the missing key,
the secret note
from Jackie's organ,
the blender of sleepover chocolate malts,
the baby bunny skeletons,
the discontinued maxi pads mom wisely hoarded,
the enormous front teeth my young mouth
produced yet
could hardly contain.

Display for me these things or strew them about
a springtime world
where the garage doors grease with a
slicked-up fury

greased by the eager
juices
of teenagers sneaking out
and
teenagers sneaking
in

where the robins' wings clap out
horrific remembrances—

a springtime dusk
that I hardly deserve but
would rather die
than to
divorce.

Display them for me
or let me make an adventure of finding them

there—in the one corner
of the neighborhood left
somehow untouched

(maybe in the Banish family's garage
that always smelled of
older-brother-age
waiting
just ahead)

where I wait for myself
in perfected form

naked
having lost
nothing

with eyelids clapping in
a fury of disbelief

like robin wings

lost in the density of
night.