In summer we walked through the woods,
picking wild strawberries and naming the trails as our own.
The remains of a homestead lay half-buried, roof joists rotting around rusty cans,
books frail and dusty as moth wings. Grass seeds clung to our clothes.
Can you stop time so we can stay together?
In town, he drove with his arm across the front seat
to keep us from hitting the dashboard at intersections.
Leave your coat on when we get there.
He knew these people before he was married. Sad to see us, they asked us to stay.
But by then we’d seen dead animals and fires at the edge of the garbage dump,
smoke lingering in the orange peels and eggshells, cigarette butts and toys.
We’d heard arguments through the floorboards, moved into houses with dirty sinks
and medicine abandoned behind the bathroom mirror.
We’d departed together, in the middle of the night, in the middle of the school year,
to sleep in campgrounds and fields.
We’d listened to the snow muffle our voices as it lit the night sky,
tree boughs soft and heavy and quiet.
We felt the inward pull of family,
like underwater branches against our legs in the lake.
Will you leave us some clues before you go?
We need to know fool’s gold from the real thing,
the names of the people who broke your nose,
and should you kiss the girl on your right when you see a car with one light?
photo by Samantha Malay, on the way to Colville, Washington, 1990
My sister and I squint at the sun
hair clasped to our foreheads with metal barrettes
skirts pieced from old jeans for the first day of school.
We saw clothes in the underbrush flattened by rain
a car door open in the middle of the street
an earring lost down the drain in the sink.
The apartment flooded from kitchen to bathroom
so we laid a boardwalk of two-by-four lumber
but talk of a cake and our lack of ingredients
left us unsettled the rest of the day.
With our backs to the baseboards
we can listen for crickets
and keep our doubts hidden
where they feel like dissent.
Picture our mailbox covered in snow
and boots near the stove to dry overnight.
The flaw in our plans
was faith in our bond
and the trouble behind us
troubles us now.
pull the pit from the plum
wash your hair in the sink
open the window
to the mid-August heat
where shadows unspool
between distant trains
and voices in the alley
we will step around
the toys on the sidewalk
and hitchhike in spring
to the edge of the woods
a plane crossed the sky
as we stood in the field
and shook pebbles from our shoes
on our way to the creek
we arrived at the homestead
with untrained hands
and faith in our ability
to find comfort in solitude
daughter, daughter, son
do you see the days we had ahead of us
when the mailbox was empty
and there was nothing left to hock?
did we push our luck
shrug our bond
carry our sorrows to the next town?
photo by Samantha Malay, Seattle, Washington, 1991
Family was our religion
but we lacked the faith of converts
learned to fret separately and stare at the anthill.
We made fried-egg sandwiches when the sun went down
wrapped panbread in waxpaper in the leftover light
comforted by tree-shroud and the weight of our quilts.
Sadness took shape in the dark
and felt like a plan by morning:
leave the scythe and the hayloft, the axe and the woodpile
the rainbarrel is empty but there’s gas in the truck.
Dust will gather beneath our porch
but we’ll be back next summer
to look at the path
where the barbwire sags
and the field meets the fence.
