The other day I wrote to a friend, "I wrote this poem this morning. I may have written this poem before? It's a memory that has stuck with me. Maybe I never wrote about it at all, but it feels like I did because I think about it often. And that's a squirrely little trick of memory, isn't it?"
Well, this isn't the same poem that I was referring to in my email. This is two poems I discovered this morning, both inspired by Kenneth Koch's "To My Old Addresses," but written at different times in my life. Proof you can go home again, over and over. Proof that there is never enough time, that your memories are faulty, and that you may have favorite phrasings for those memories. It's possible I wrote the second poem with the first one from 2017 open beside it, in fact I must have, because there are repeated phrasings. I do recall using Google maps to find my old apartment on Main Street in Wilkes-Barre while writing the second one. I feel like a sleuth in my own memoir, moving through all the rooms of these homes, bumping into invisible furniture. These poems are all about process, and processing.
This first one is from 2017.
To My Old Addresses
316 Ramapo Valley Road:
The apple tree, a yawn of lawn
where my father planted a vegetable garden,
porch where we played,
a banister where my sister
lost a tooth, the accordion door
to my bedroom. Traffic
lights told stories on my walls.
Address forgotten:
Red shag carpet, a loft, and stairs
with a space underneath I turned
into a post office. The pond my sister and I named
Anniversary Pond, we skated and I fell
in love with the idea
of what is underneath the surfaces
of the world. So many.
21 Huron Circle:
A dogwood tree, a deck with a space
left for a tree to grow through it, rooms
where my sister and I slammed doors
or created radio shows, a forest sizzling
with cicadas, dirt roads, a lake and a canoe.
The woods where I grew up, my parents
were so young in t-shirts and jeans,
my grandmothers visited on Sundays,
holidays, and birthdays.
118 Green Street:
first apartment during college,
my roommate’s knick-knacks and kimchee,
and the Peeping Tom
who left a mountain of cigarette butts
on the lawn by the kitchen window.
115 Main Street:
Not enough outlets to have
the fishtank and the coffeepot
plugged in at the same time,
a landlord who clipped his toenails
while my grandmothers visited
his real estate office. Green
shag carpeting. A kitchen table
from the 1960s, all vinyl and chrome.
My grocery receipts included
items that were a dollar or less.
221 South State Street:
Home with Mom and Dad
for a summer, then for a year or so
of a self-imposed college sabbatical.
Scrabble on the side porch, dinners with dad
while mom worked the three to eleven shift
at the hospital. House full of light.
One Hundred and Something North Main Street:
Three flights up to a layered torte
of more green shag carpeting. My father
paid burly co-workers to help him
haul my apartment sized piano
up all those stairs. I didn’t play
it enough for that.
135 W. Franklin Street:
A slow chain of buildings with
blue doors, and a train that howled
at 1 a.m. every morning.
Roaches were a staple
in the kitchen.
Traps everywhere, scuttling
when the lights were flipped on.
1148 Buttonwood Street:
Eight months pregnant, I painted
the ceiling of the bedroom
in our brick rowhome, and slept
on a mattress on the floor.
My daughter’s first smile,
first tooth, first steps.
Then, gunfire.
Feuding neighbors threw eggs
at each other in the street.
We moved.
118 Oak Street:
Two floors we rented. Cherry tree in the back,
a kitchen big enough to dance in.
Long walks in the strip-mined land
my daughter called “The Jungle.”
25 Armstrong Street:
The first house I bought.
My dad raised his eyebrow.
Not one right angle in it,
thanks to coal barons
who robbed the pillars.
The love of my life helped
paint the rooms alive again.
My daughter
wore a cat tail, a ladybug costume
a prom dress, a graduation cap,
and then a baker’s toque.
When it was time to leave,
we packed everything
but the years of growth
marked on the doorjamb.
--
This one is from 2024:
To My Old Addresses
316 Ramapo Valley Road, Oakland, New Jersey:
apple tree
pancake
yawn of lawn, garden radish,
my bicycle best friend Billy,
clouds,
gerbils mazed in a habitrail, wooden blocks,
my sister
lost a tooth, an accordion
opened to my bedroom,
traffic lights told
stories on the walls,
a burglar left a dark star in the window.
Rental A-Frame in Valley of Lakes, Pennsylvania:
The woods full of earaches,
I was thinned by a flu.
My sister and I skated
on our secret pond,
dashed through reeds,
made houses within
the house, lived in them
as if they held our futures.
21 Huron Circle, Valley of Lakes, Pennsylvania:
A dogwood, deck with space
left for a tree to grow through it, rooms
where my sister and I slammed doors
at each other or created radio shows.
Summer woods sizzled with cicadas,
dirt roads led to nowhere,
a lake, a canoe we overturned.
The dog we buried with a cairn
by the garage, my parents young
in t-shirts and jeans,
GG Romayne and Helen still alive
to sashay into our Sunday dinners.
118 Green Street, Nanticoke, Pennsylvania:
My first college apartment,
independent, I thought,
except I didn’t pay rent.
My roomie was a best friend
from high school with knick-knacks galore
and a kimchee habit.
A peeping Tom
left a mountain of cigarette butts
by our uncurtained kitchen window.
115 Main Street, Nanticoke, Pennsylvania:
The landlord, Albert of the Cigar
and Grey-shirted Potbelly, lurked
on my roof porch, insisted
I take no male visitors,
clipped his toenails
in front of my grandmothers
once as they waited for me to return.
My apartment didn’t have enough
outlets to have a fish tank and the coffeepot
plugged in at the same time,
but it came with a kitchen table
from the 1960s, a vinyl
boomerang design, and chrome.
My grocery receipts while I lived there
included only items that were a dollar or less.
221 South State Street, Ephrata, Pennsylvania:
Back with Mom and Dad for a summer,
then for a year or so of self-imposed college sabbatical,
I received letters from lovers and friends,
turned the space above the garage into
an art studio where I made greeting cards,
and wrote poems. The neighbor’s “brother”
arrived each morning in his suspenders
to unzip his pants and pee on her garage
before visiting her. The fire department
alarm went off regularly, our dog escaped
and ran up the street. The Gehr’s little dog
yapped through the fence. We played Scrabble
on the side porch, and I had dinners with dad
while mom worked the three to eleven shift
at the hospital. I remember a house full of light.
Decades later I emptied it all with my sister,
put it up for sale.
521 North Main Street, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania:
Three flights up to a layered torte
of boozy scented green shag carpeting.
My father paid burly co-workers to help him
haul my apartment sized piano
up all those stairs. I didn’t play
it enough for that. An ex lurked
in my hallway, I worked a 9-5
at the Donnelley Directory,
shopped at the Oh Yes! Chicken Mart
down the street. Painting and crying
one night I drank vodka straight
out of an iced tea glass then rolled off
the bed to vomit into the carpet.
I turned on the radio
and the blender for the noise
to keep me awake,
alive.
135 W. Franklin Street, Topton, Pennsylvania:
A town away from the university
where I decided to complete my education,
but never did, I painted and wrote in a chain of buildings
with identical blue doors, and a train that howled
at 1 a.m. every morning. Roaches were a staple.
Traps everywhere.
1148 Buttonwood Street, Reading, Pennsylvania:
Eight months pregnant, I painted
the ceiling of the bedroom
in our brick rowhome, and slept
on a mattress on the floor.
My daughter’s first smile,
first tooth, first steps.
Then, gunfire.
Feuding neighbors threw eggs
at each other in the street.
118 Oak Street, Nanticoke, Pennsylvania:
Two rented floors in the place where I thought
I belonged. Cherry tree in the back,
a kitchen big enough to dance in, but we never did.
Instead, we fought over a melted wax
accident when he tried to make encaustics.
Long walks in the strip-mined land
my daughter called “The Jungle.”
Abandoned sofas, beer bottles, fire pits,
the stripped land still hot to the touch
and sulfurous.
25 Armstrong Street, Edwardsville, Pennsylvania:
The first house I bought. My dad raised his eyebrow.
Not one right angle in it, thanks to coal barons
who robbed the pillars. Hell’s mouths opened up
in the yard, the street.
My daughter wore a cat tail,
a ladybug costume,
a prom dress,
a graduation cap,
and then a baker’s toque.
The love of my life helped
paint the rooms alive again
after a divorce, the bamboo
sang to me in the morning.
Not long after a neighbor shot out
my daughter’s windows,
we repaired and rented the house,
then sold it.
153 E. King Street, Lancaster, Pennsylvania:
We downsized to upscale, sold everything for marble
countertops and a balcony view of historic brick
against blue sky. City street cleaning began
at 3 a.m. with a gas powered leaf blower,
trucks always hit the pothole right outside our bedroom.
His father moved in, took over the second bedroom
for a year, and my mother visited for Sunday soufflés
and games of Miles Bournes until she forgot how to find us.
We played a game of Hide and Seek.
29 Diamond Spring Circle, Akron, Pennsylvania:
I collaged the bathroom wall, turned
the tiny extra bedroom into my writing space,
backed the car out of the attached garage
to turn it into “The Little Theatre of the House of the Car”
where we held open mic nights.
An enormous tree filled the yard,
neighbors became friends,
I walked past the shush of wheat fields
to memorize lines from Shakespeare.
Helen moved into the basement
and turned it into an apartment,
Dan moved away to care for his father,
the cat destroyed the sofa, I helped
my mother in ways that felt intrusive,
but I could still make her laugh.
2979 Kutztown Road, East Greenville:
A pond to boat and skate on, a house
full of drafts and ghosts, an electrical fire
that shot out the outlets. I raised 40 or so
ducks, two goats, and two dopey sheep. Dan
followed his dream of growing his own food —
tomatoes, squashes, corn, peanuts, kolrahbi.
I turned the old barn into a theatre.
Dying ash trees knocked power out on the coldest
of days, I got chilblains. We committed horrible acts
of farm mercy, locals shouted “faggots!” at us
as they roared down the road full of potholes.
I became the quirky lady next door to Archer and Gus,
who I watched daily as they waited for the school bus.
We balanced feathers, made art, fed the goats,
created a game with a hula hoop and a hammock,
and turned feral cats into pets. My mother visited
once from the nursing home to say “It’s like a dream.”
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