running up that hill
it’s just pure love
i want to hold
the last remaining years
the few existing months
the one or two precious days
of childhood in our house
the cubbies still poised
on the edge of yesterday
still packed with so much
infancy so many years
of toddler’s accumulation
and the riddled ownings
of the child
malti and leela
lilly and malts
they are there
on the shelves rummaging
through a box of crayons
scrawling eternitywise
mindless masterpiece
paintings & playing
chugawagachuchu on
genya’s yellow-brown
record player
i can still feel
the vibration of a
severely mangled slinky
rolling out upon the pile
of lincoln logs by way of a
littlest playhouse dog in
bladdered embrace with
the plastic glass full of
watercolor paint brushes
in desperation i rope it off
this one little corner of
the golden garden crying
“you can’t take it away
these are my daughters
my children my babies
if you take their things away
then you take them too”
if they must go
then at least let me
keep their toys
and their horses
and their epidemic of dogs
and a thousand and one
things that beautyed
the landscape of
our young family
and if you must take
their things smeared
with fingerprints so small
then at least let me have
my memory of it all