Hide, but I Know You Are There
Lost in their fading house of shadows
Weekends on the Cape
at the cottage, their little escape,
beaching with the grandkids,
Christmas with everyone, a little
crowded, but we’re family.
Running down for the weekend
became we are done with work,
let’s cut down, make it our home,
so many memories in that little place.
Early summer and the light pole still
wrapped in Christmas green, the shrubs
overgrown covering the front windows,
a dying pine near the door, one branch
broken, hanging on the ground, the yard
cluttered with fallen limbs and layers
of pine needles from years past, things you
would notice if you ever came outside.
I pick up an empty plastic box once
containing blueberries, blown out of the garbage
truck working the neighborhood, laying in front
of their door for weeks, finally caught
by a gust of late winter wind and blown
near the street, where I stuff it in my pocket.
