For Montine

I want to go back
to ham and potato salad Sundays
to piano lessons
and the wincing pain
of your boar bristle brush
as it ripped through tangled curls

to lavender cologne
and juicy fruit breath
that choked me
as you imprisoned
tender skin
in crinoline
and fastened
too tight
Mary Janes

to furtive bed checks
guarding against
forbidden comic books
and phone calls
from boys

to pins sticking
into my waist
as you tried
your latest designs on me

to hiding in the neighbor’s cellar
with every storm
because it was your only excuse
to visit

to holding clothespins
while you hung
broad white sails
infused with summer sun

to gnarled hands
filling my uplifted apron
with pungent sun-and-earth tomatoes
and strawberries that dripped guilty
down my chin

to vinegar-scented Easter eggs
and baby chicks an unnatural
pink and purple
already doomed

to Howdy Doody till 9 a.m.
when we went to town
every Saturday
for no good reason

to your gaunt face
peering between curtains
when I got home late

and even to the goddam
bible thumping
that drove me crazy
John 3:16
John 3:16
till you breathed your last
though I wasn’t there
to hear it
though I wasn’t there

I want a voice
that can scream
I’m sorry
loud enough so you can hear me
in heaven
or hell
or rotting in the dirt
wherever you are now

I want a map
back to that place
because it went away
so fast
before I could understand it
before I knew it was important
before I knew I would miss it like a lost limb

I want a way
to turn on my heels
that are headed nowhere anyway
and run back
to all those things
to you
whom I hated
whom I loved.