We did not have parents.
We only had mothers.
This was true of everyone we knew.
In the tree house we were orphans.
We hoarded Pringles and Kool-Aid
and ran around screaming "Hurricane!"
When the big kids swarmed,
we hid. One boy dangled
from the uppermost branch
and said bad words.
We had to find a new place.
In the deep summer we discovered
a construction site, scrabbled
up the steep dirt cliff to sit
on cement tubes, slightly unstable.
Until, sand under my fingernails
and dust in my eyes, on the way up the cliff,
a huge dragonfly sped right into my face,
whirring, and then it was gone.
I lost my grip and fell a few feet.
Jodi asked "What happened?
Are you okay?"
"A huge bug…" I said. "I don't know."
But I could not make it up the cliff.
I could not play there anymore.
And because of this we found a new place,
very green and swampy, with hundred of paths,
and we went there until we were too old,
and even now I would go there, if I could,
if I could find it again, if I could find Jodi,
and I would not be afraid of dragonflies.
These lists we make
of what we mean:
who knows? In day camp
I could only eat the jello,
green and listless on my plate.
"I go through a list
before you wake,"
said Björk, I thought,
but what she really said was
"I go through all this." In Iceland
the sailing ships list to one side
from the wind in the middle of the sea.
Every list of meanings
is lacking.
A list of all the lists
could not exist.