About that apartment, near the reservoir's
Great silver‑sheet, gull‑mirror,
That geese were flying west for the spring:
How was I to know? I was not born yet.
A dream of past but mother's eyes quick
On what was coming, and me betraying
Father in advance, or so his eyes said,
Fixed at their edge, and not retreating.
He was standing by the Palisade tennis courts.
He looked up once at me and set his mouth:
He walked away but I dogged him.
We swung our legs the back way home
High‑stepping hedges, ducking round
Houses when we had the chance,
Going to his own back door to enter,
And surprising my pregnant mother
In the dining room, playing with a toddler
Who sat beneath a chair looking at
The electric bug zapper, brand new in 1960.
Mother greeted me as if all this could happen.
She was shining and not in reflection
But with created light, sustaining, bathing.
Then I heard the service door swinging shut.
Should have known I wouldn't catch him.
That was all there was. I woke,
And lay there and imagined this:
The utter shadows of that house at dusk
He fled through to reach their bedroom,
Her cool silk pooled on the cold floor,
Where a pair of his work shoes went
Toe to toe with her white slippers.