Going Back

Gregory Djanikian

We have been cruising, half a block

at a time, my wife, my two children,

all morning, and I have been pointing out

unhurriedly and with some feeling

places of consequence, sacred places,

backyards, lush fields, garages, alleyways.

“There,” I say, “by this big cottonwood,

That’s where I dropped the fly ball, 1959.”

“And in 1961,” I say, “at this very corner,

Barry Sapolsky tripped me up with his gym bag.”

My son has fallen asleep, my daughter

has been nodding “yes” indiscriminately

for the last half hour, and my wife

has the frozen, wide-eyed look of the undead.

“Maybe lunch,” I say, though I’m making now

my fourth approach to Curtin Jr. High School,

yellow-bricked, large-windowed, gothic,

where Frank Marone preyed on our terror once

and Janice Lehman walked in beauty.

“Salute, everyone,” I say, “salute,”

bringing my hand up to my brow as we pass

the gilded entrance, “This is where things

of importance happened,” and I am pulling out

from under the car seat a photo album

of old school pictures, “Page 8,” I say,

“Fred Decker, John Carlson by the bike rack,

Mr. Burkett … ,” and driving on, following

the invisible map before my eyes.

Now we are drifting toward my boyhood house

and I am showing my wife trellised porches,

bike routes, more than she’d care to see;

“Why this longing?” she says, “What about now,

the kids, our lives together, lunch, me?”

I give her a kiss and turn right on Cherry

and there in front of our eyes, barely changed,

is the house where all my memories converge.

“Look at the windows of my room,” I say,

“see, there, the shadowy figure moving behind them?”

And before anyone can hope to answer,

I have grabbed my camera, I am snapping

pictures through the windshield, bricks,

dormers, railings, fences, streets, all

are falling thrall to my aim.

“We could be happy here,” I say, putting

another roll of film in and beginning

to nose my car toward Bill Corson’s house.

“Really, Daddy,” my daughter says; “No chance,”

my wife tacks on, but all I’m hearing

is the crack of bats in the neighborhood lot

and Danny’s pearl-handled cap gun going off

and the drone of bees around honeysuckle

and Dewey Waugh’s gravelly voice

urging on his mower, and the sound

of wind in the cottonwoods is like water,

I am coasting, there is time for everything.