night of 8/15/2011

a wall with square gaps between the bricks. i recognize the pattern from a playground of my childhood. a roadside pocket of grass beside tall buildings of similar brick. i pass it driving to my old home by an unusual route. back then we'd be driving home, my mom and I, and stop to get cash from a drive-through ATM, but also pull over for me to play for a while. a moment of peace. the ATM has been replaced with another, from a newer bank; no longer brick.

there's an old house here filled with old things, antiques. the whole family, now, all of us grown, is visiting it again. i'd never realized when i was young that the house was owned by our family; i'd always thought we were just checking on it, once in a while, when the owner was away. a sense of an old, kind woman. shelves and bureau-tops of very old heirlooms, now dusty, dust in the air lit by broad tall windows. a staircase with comically steep and shallow steps leads to a high, locked door we'd never entered. an acute corner of a wall abutting the playground, beside a window, has been extended by a few inches and then plastered over.