Down the Lane

Down the lane winding between & behind houses, I find the cottage

I rented after I left Michael, he painted it bright yellow, decades later

it’s the same color, Mike with stars of paint in his curly black hair,

standing at the door, beer can in hand, saying, Done, saying, You sure

about this, sure as a twenty-two-year-old, he was my first lover

who I married because he asked & because of the look

in his eyes like no one could love me more, we kissed good-bye,

his smoky-sweet smell, he got into his truck, drove to Colorado, I went inside,

opened the windows, sat on the twin bed, only place to sit except a folding

chair at the scarred table where I ate mustard sandwiches, wrote in a spiral

notebook, read Of Time and the River, 900 pages, starting over again

when I finished, stood outside late at night, lizards darting across

the lane under streetlights, in the breeze the trees’ shadows watery,

mine mixed among them, the heart young & old at once.