What takes me to tar-patched cracks on a tree lined street?
I know how the concrete looks,
Brown and aging like an old map,
Black roads that lead to what is no longer there,
I want to hold my palm on its warmth
When we talk about childhood,
You mention your chemo,
Stunning me with your calm
Poolside, wet towel over concrete,
We still share eight-year-old faces,
Inching forward, feeling the heat
Not able to save that injured bird,
From the parking lot waystation,
The pastor’s wife, aghast, a turn-away,
We set it down, as she demands, for the other world
Squatted besties, roaming the neighbourhood,
examining fresh sidewalk pours,
Whose initials are these, brazen?
It feels far out of bounds,
For well-behaved children,
We wish for this immortality ourselves
Rosebushes dripping bubblegum-coloured petals
We stick them on as pretend fingernails
Never realizing with all the time
In a summer day,
It might be impossible,
To return again
Old concrete begging for an inscription,
Now miles and eons away in time
So, I add your name, Susan, a substitute
Some sixty years later, in verse.
Mitzi Dorton has poetry in Rattle, Apofenie, Poetry South, Appalachian Places, Shadowplay, Constellations, Arachne Press and many others. A multi-genre writer, she is author of the book, "Chief Corn Tassel," Finishing Line Press, and former associate editor with Fiction on the Web.