And a quick look in the mirror will show
that you are neither the boots in the corner
nor the boat asleep in its boathouse.

***

"The tupperware is out of control."

"Yes, yes, I know! I don't know how it happened and it's everywhere all the time and and and--"

My voice was getting higher and higher until you cut me off.

"It's not a big deal."

You were right. Obviously. I even knew it wasn't a big deal but for a split second I thought it was a big deal to you and then my voice started to get high because if organized tupperware is that important to you maybe we made the wrong decision.

***

I'll be the grapes fermented, bottled and
served with the table set in my finest suit
like a perfect gentleman.
I'll be the fire escape that's bolted to the
ancient brick where you will sit
and contemplate your day.

***

The first time we hung stockings--for Christmas--I was so worried. Worried about the memory, us having it together, it being perfect, or not, and if not what would happen so at least I could prepare myself for it.

I thought a lot of your mother in those early weeks of Advent. What it must of been like to know her. What she was thinking when she stitched your stocking two years before you were born and what she was thinking when she learned she wouldn't know you two years past your birth.

She would have loved you. She did love you, I guess. That's how mothers are. She loved you when she stitched that stocking, when you were still--how do they say it? a twinkling in someone's eye.

I loved you that way. You were only a twinkling.

***

I'll be your platform shoes; undo what heredity's done to you:
you won't have to strain to look into my eyes.
I'll be your winter coat buttoned and zipped
straight to the throat with the collar up so
you won't catch a cold.

***

I remember recess in the fifth grade. We only had 15 minutes but I was always so amazed at how long it lasted. I was always sad when it was over because that meant I would have to spend the next 50 minutes in chemistry or whatever they call science for fifth graders.

Recess lasted forever and yet I never wanted it to end.

You told me that science for you was very different. You didn't learn very much on account of all the unexplainable theories and then they said you were so brilliant that maybe you should just join the junior highers studying real chemistry.

Did it bother you that you never had fake chemistry?

***

I am also the moon in the trees
and the blind woman's tea cup.
But don't worry, I'm not the bread and the knife.
You are still the bread and the knife.
You will always be the bread and the knife ...