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our house was a one-floor white clapboard two-family
it was originally our town’s one-room school

rose miller was on our party line
sometimes I would listen
and rose would scold, and I would laugh
I loved to laugh

our white-washed picket fence had a swinging gate
I would swing and swing – and laugh
it was my favorite thing
and the elms and oaks of Perry Street – where we lived

rolling in the gold, orange and red of their piled autumn leaves
losing my Hop-a-long Cassidy hat
I would laugh until I’d cry
until I’d fly
laughing sent my heart in flight

but the nights of the rains frightened me – I did not laugh

for forty years I searched to find it
I looked for it in the laughter of my schoolmates
as I acted the fool
disrupting the class
angering my teachers

I looked for it in my teacher’s smile
in their recognition and praise
I so desperately needed
craved

I fought to try to find it
black and blue and bloody battles
I liked the pain – I deserved it

I searched in the sweaty back seats of flesh-stenched cars
rolling in blue-suede passion
with smooth-ass’d, soft-tit’d teenaged girls

I searched the ivy’d climbs of academia
looking in the pretty panties of the trust-fund debs that roamed those halls

I called out to it in amplified voice from strobe-lighted stages
strutting and screaming over the roar of stacked marshalls
and the tie-dyed din of Aquarius’s chosen children

I probed for it down the throats of clutching groupies
gluttonously gaping to gratify
engaged in their own desperate quest

I looked for it in bottles
in the smoke clouds of hash pipes
through the needled eye of the white horse

I tore life apart trying to find it
marriage by marriage
friendship by friendship
career by career

still I rocked, and rocked harder – chasing a higher high
perhaps to spot my wandering youth from such a lofty vantage

when finally I fell, it was a long way down

brutally I careened and crashed
through the barbs of my cruel words – damaging lies
through the carnage of those who loved and trusted me
through the charred year’s of burned bridges
through the shards of my fractured self respect
to the bitter bottom – the ruin that was me

as I wallowed in my shame and lost hope – you found me
newly on your path of life you reached down to me
in your bright un-jaded eyes I saw a different possibility
I found love and reconciliation
I learned how to forgive
most especially — myself

all monsters long subdued
I’ve found my way back to the Perry Street of my youth
and that picket fence