The House Remembered

The house remembered, took me back so tenderly. I slept as never before, a stone on the river bed, nothing between me and the white morning. My thoughts floated, light as insects, light as birds. All night I heard the house breathing through the grate on the floor.

Where the French doors open to the backyard, you see summer: a garden bleached of color, a dull white sky. It’s a high noon in mid-July. Your hair is thinner, your movements lose their fluidity. Between this road and that, the self remains, anchored by desire.

We moved into the house the same year my father and my sister died. My father spent some months in the tiny room we now use as an office. I remember he seemed very afraid.
When I couldn’t sleep, I’d lie awake, listening to him mutter: I don’t want to die.
Most of the time, I thought: Too late, too late, too late.
Too late to tell my sister: You were good.
Too late to tell my father: You were generous.
Our celebrations now seem insufficient. The sunny days bring them back to mind.

Because of his attachment to computers, my son has only a rudimentary knowledge of flora and fauna. I would have liked our son to grow up in a place where there were deer. We’d spot them, long-legged and wobbly, showing us their white tails while they bounded in a meadow. We would live by a forest, a forest full of deer. There would be sweet grass, and apples good enough to eat. What we have instead: a small wooden house on a busy street. I painted the shed door red, how many years ago? I think of imaginary deer.

The eye is better off seeing what it wants, or seeing it backwards. Desire pulses—yet all roads are finite. The beagle’s habits—Old dog, your migration has ended, of all places, here.

One day, my son fell out of the tree, plummeting into the rose bushes. I was aghast. His injuries, the doctor said, were inconclusive. We let him drink as much Coke as he wanted. We were inconsolable. At night, he turned and tossed in his sleep, cried out “No!” His nightmares were about rose bushes. The accident happened just as the bushes were getting ready to bloom. A blink of time ago. Now, glorious, glorious: Sunflare yellow blooms in the hot air. But my son refuses to look at them. He averts his gaze. He wants blinders to wear. Every child has his or her story of hurt, don’t ask me why. When he grows up, will he still hate rose bushes?