A day like Rittenhouse Square, winter, 1993.

Smelling of subway steam,

unwashed homeless,

drafty theater with fresh popcorn,

pizza, cookies, new books,

wine, Old Bay, horse,

reefer, Tastycake frosting, and fatigue.

Looking like Currier & Ives after a bender.

Feeling like a cozy burial vault.

Not to be opened until middle age.

Insistent sun

bleaching hope

into fossils and fables,

our balled-up thunder

rolls over tender valleys

and we stop trying

to see the ideal

in someone else;

light crackles static

all over the floor

up through fingers

pushing everyone away –

you’re better off

without my crazy times

though I’ll miss the embraces

for what they were: grounding

and entirely made-up.

A mountain can erase

a small community at the tip of a fern

with just a shadow.

–

I can’t make the leap

from frond to the present

without vast calculations

beyond my reckoning

… but I’m happy just to gape

with a little manic joy

at the embarrassment we all are

as humans, lesser than fiddleheads.

I barely thought about waffles

the whole time I was with

conifers of the deep woods,

though I admit

the ridges and sticky sap

made me wistful

for breakfast nooks

and pajamas.

This afternoon was

a perfect circle

with jagged edges

comprised of vintage

National Geographic

boobs, 70-year-old maps,

and helpful advice

for the docile housewife

and man-about-town.

I learned about

dreamy post-war ideals

all from within the confines

of a fuzzy blanket.