Found

On March 27, 2017, I emailed this to myself. I think I typed it on my phone, in the park where it happened. I’m cleaning out my very old gmail and found this, so I thought I’d put it here. The line breaks are odd, but I like them – sort of poem-like.

Her hair gray and wild, she strode toward my eldest with

A fierce look and wagging finger, “NO!”

She shouted and there go my hackles

I put myself between the two of them and

She told him not to ride his bike that way, not that way,

And I asked her firmly what was wrong, and she

Beamed at me, sudden smile, and said “He wanted

To ride between his brothers, but I stopped him for you, I

Stopped him.” “Not too bad” she said “for someone who

Doesn’t know what she’s doing.” She went on

Breathless, no spaces between words, no room for me to

Object or interject, “I love it out here. I live in that one with the swan

On the door.” And I look, and there it was, a double, garage below, two

Doors for the two separate homes in one, each with a metal screen door

With a swan outline cut into the metal. I turn back and now she is

Telling me that the weather is so fine today, that it was hot earlier, that she loves it out here, where the

Children come and play, with “more toys than any child could dream of, isn’t it wonderful!” and then

She turns and speaks sharply to my child again, asks again “Not too bad for someone who

Doesn’t know what she’s doing.” And I take the bait, “Do you

Have children?” and she says no but she lives right out here, in the one with the swan on the door.

By the end of our playtime, she has told me fifteen times about

The swan on the door, and told me at least a dozen times

How she gathers broken glass, offered up by the urban dirt,

So the children won’t cut themselves in a fall,

How she has two jars of it, all colorful, “working on a third! Gives me something to do!”

At least ten times, she has said “more toys than any

Child could dream of!” and

Perhaps a hundred times she has said “I love it here.”

As we leave, I ask her – “so where do you live?” and she says “right there! The one with the swan on the door!” and I smile, and she tells me about her two jars of broken glass, working on a third,

And as I am pulled away by the children, she keeps talking

No breaks in her words, no chance for me to object or

Interject or ask

Do you have any children? Who takes care of you?