And maybe I’ll go back someday and stand
in the shadow of the crab apple tree,
look up at the window of the old apartment,
stand under the leaves until my old neighbor
Rose emerges with her cane, her two Pekingese,
watch as she waves to the doorman, and I’ll
stand there until I see my son teeter and crash
as he used to into that same bench, scrape
his knee, learn again how the body’s unmade,
heals, even as the mind scars, and then I’ll stroll
through the lobby up to that apartment and out
onto the terrace, fifteen stories high, wonder
if my heart will race, try to leap from my
body like the first time, and should I have
one more spring and one more Fall
I’d fill that terrace again with the red
and orange peppers, buckets of basil,
yellow zinnias, indestructible the length
of summer. And again the morning glories
will sprawl, overtake the railings, my wild green,
my sanctuary, a Rousseau painting, a jungle,
where I’d be the lion at the center, forgetting
the city noise and the concrete lurking below,
and this time I won’t turn away the family
of pigeons, will welcome them into our living
room, share pictures of our son, and I’ll
talk twigs with the father, ignore the trail
of feathers, give him a gift of a pipe cleaner,
and I know at some point he’ll have to bring
up the nest, the two eggs, I took down and
left in the bushes between buildings, the home
they’d made under our wicker love seat,
and I’ll have to keep quiet, turn from his
inquisitive head, and how I know I’ll forget
to ask him if he would have given up his
green paradise for a family of strangers,
and would he stand by me, peck the ground
at my feet, as I stare at those windows searching,
keep me happy, keep me sane, dancing, his little
pigeon dance, on those sad little pigeon legs.