La Pura Neta

We’re like kids              running under shooting               red fire hydrants, us,      standing in transparent tanks & heavy shorts under our home’s gutter drain.  “My turn,”                I remember you say but I don’t move. Instead,                I close my eyes &                remember mom,      twirling in her long denim-blue dress              on our porch                             under the rain. Mom would take us                outside in the rain                to bathe together,      wrapped in baby-soap suds;                thunder & murky clouds                               no longer frightening. Under the gutter drain you nudge my nine-year-old waist with your seven-year-old hand. I open my eyes                & meet yours, my love for you overflowing. I moved aside                     for you under the gutter drain,   as mom moved           on our small back porch,                           making space to twirl with her. We never bathed in the

We fancied ourselves builders and decided to build a house in a one day. We collected planks of woods tossed in our alley, dug out left over arrow nails from the ground, and carried them together to the space beneath our Fletcher street porch. When we finished our south-facing wall one of us said Let’s make an experiment , and we both turned towards the blue plastic rain barrel that has always been underneath our porch. the blue plastic rain barrel filled with dads motor oil      :the environment our broken toys and those we found forgotten                   :the variables question:    if pushed down into the barrel which toys will drown                                     and which will be polished and playable again? We never finished building our porch house, We never finished the test, We left the blue barrel uncovered—                                                                                              twelve months