I’m not straight up and down like the ones in movies
where children grow older in portraits up the wall. I’ve
got a crook in the middle, a curve. You remember.
When you ran down as a girl, I’d stop you just before
the bottom, so you could decide if you really wanted to
keep going. One day your brother threw your perfect bright
plastic dollhouse down me and it stopped there—all
flotsamed in the curve. As you picked up the tiniest
pots and pans, a mom, a bit of doorway, through the
tornado of your cries you had to be sure everyone knew
it wasn’t the dolls you cared about. No. Those were girl
things. It was the house you wanted perfect. It was the
house you needed to hold onto. Each child with their
own bedroom. Two bathrooms. A kitchen where
everything worked. You swore you could smell a pie
baking in the little oven. Apple. Apples picked from
the backyard tree. And when you held the plastic dog
in your hands, ran your little fingers along the rigid
swirls of his fur, you could see him waking up to his
own apple you’d throw and throw again like something
you could control. Like something you could control.