Nostalgia

What she misses is the pale-faced swimming pool days.

The days of evil-eye sour candy and

murderer's crabgrass. The many hours of

hot-seasoned sunlight making prisms of the hose water

snaking through the air;

isosceles cut cucumber sandwiches and

cloud mayonnaise for lunch,

dinner parties with the wicked magician and

his son, with all the musical humans with their sundry

flukes and jams--

Her mothers hands, always on her back,

rearranging the map of her insides.

2006