Saturday: One Version (Fourth Week of an Unidentified Illness)

Tired of enclosure, I sit near what view 
of trees and sky my house will give. 
Across the back fence, my neighbor 
who can hardly walk 
lowers herself painfully to a white deck chair.
She closes her eyes, turns her thin face 
toward the sun, and is still. 
From my glass doors, why do I feel 
an unwilling seer? 
So often beauty and pain are too equal a mix.
Our fears and sorrows leak out, 
deposit on the memories of others, 
negatives that may or may not come to light.
And what does the past teach us 
but to see the future already bearing 
such layers. 

I hear my youngest son drop his bike 
and come in from piano lessons, 
stop at the fridge—his next hours 
beginning to take shape in the sky of his mind.
Perhaps he is already surrounded 
by the scent of his treehouse— 
redwood above raspberries. 
Or perhaps he is simply standing up straight
against his mother’s daily fevers 
and the mid-life glooms I hoped were hidden.

And why do I feel the need 
to make up an ending to my neighbor’s day—
that image of her struggle into the chair
demanding something. . . . 
A flock of birds lifts, 
as if one body, from the birch: 
my son is in the treehouse. 
I want suddenly to join him, but 
excuses are necessary—brownies, 
the mail, maybe some word 
from his siblings who left him stranded here
while they finish college and their lives. 

Strange, how all the years of planning and doing
have led to a moment that seems pre-filmed.
The woman next door still lies in the spring sun,
not moving. I slide open the door and listen—
legs like paper. . . .
And I see myself from my neighbor’s view:
in a shuttered light, ready to step out.