If you could find my home.

If you could go back to that place,

The house under the canopy of six maple trees,

The world under cover of being white and smart and gullible and blond and freckled,

When Walter talked about the dead on the other channel,

While we watched the Mouse Club and the six notes of the animated Beatles,

That safe place, under the mist of not knowing what was really going on, just a blink away.

If you could walk right in the front door, and you could,

Because Ruth Anne Rogers had the key,

And my and Marion. And my uncle Jim.

And my Grandmother, bless her heart,

although she had no recollection of it,

nor glimmer of an idea where she put it.

And of course my Dad. And my Mom.

But not me—we were no latchkey kids, I’ll tell you that right now.

We could walk right in,

Me, and you, and the dog down the street, and whoever else took a notion

because the not-so-well-kept secret was,

The door was never locked.

Because locked doors pissed my mom right off.

“A locked door keeps honest people honest, but it only slows a thief down.”

That’s what my dad said.

A lot.

All the time.

Do you even know what that means? I sure don’t.

I wonder if he did?

If you could hop off the Ridge-Blue bus at the stop out front.

If you could saunter across the maple shaded lawn.

If you could walk up the rotten steps and across the soft wood of the porch

(and not fall through).

If you could walk right through the front door

(and it’s been established that you could),

Then, you would be close to home for me.

If you knew where to look,

You could travel back in time and across the den and up the twelve steps

(I wonder if the people who want to quit things got the term, 12-steps, from

our house—I certainly get the connection),

You could push aside the camouflage, a mountain of pants and shirts and socks, disguised as a boy’s messy habits.

You could reach under the bed, if you dared,

if you hadn’t seen the things under there that I had dreamed.

You could pull out the little rust-colored tackle box.

And if you had a key, which you did not.

There’s only one key to that little lock, and it stays with me at every second. But…

Just for the sake of a poem, if you had a key, you could unlock the little padlock,

Or you could cut it off with bolt cutters (if you dared).

And flip up the little latch,

And lift the lid and look inside…

Like the Philistines who looked inside the arc and got boils and a god with broken hands and a severed nose…

And you would see

My

Home.

And I would catch you. And glare at you. And take the ark from your hands.

And without breaking eye contact, I would close the lid.

And tuck my home under my arm.

And follow the pillar of fire out of your presence.