I lived on tier 6 of a modern-day loft with exposed 
ceilings, walls of glass and floors of concrete. 
No kitchen cupboards, and no counter space. 

Downtown builders don’t expect residents to cook. 
A galley kitchen is a non-kitchen, as if the loft were a ship 
floating in blue sky with no time to cook, occupants 

at the helm during the long, perilous nights. 
A single door served as entrance and exit 
and while we slept, it opened and closed. Spirits 

rambled the thick floors. I had this feeling they liked 
what we’d done with the place. Fearing the loft 
had been built on consecrated land, my research showed 

a fire in the early 19th century of a shoe factory.
Two German Shepherd guard dogs were lost. 
As I followed our moving van out of the driveway 
		
after an arduous 16 hours of loading, I glanced 
up and saw two light beams moving through the now 
vacant rooms, two souls, I’d like to think, guarding 

what we had abandoned. And I, bereft, on the road 
to a new home, a new city, left those who watched 
over our harbored sky ship.
                        

We are not far from the classroom and already
the morning California sun beats down with 
its cheerfulness beyond all reason. 

A child appears in front of us to investigate 
Eddie’s face until the boy must cover his eyes, 
sun being that bright. 

He announces he doesn’t believe Eddie is a real poet
because, he reasons, removing his hand from above
his eyes and speaking directly to me, he is too tall. 

The bell rings signaling recess is over, so Eddie and I 
head off to different rooms. I watch Eddie disappear into 
the mouth of a darkened hall, a giant among smallerlings.
                        

My left eye feels tired, as if I haven’t slept, while the right
is clear, bright even, 20/20 as I test my field of vision.
 
It’s always this way: life/death, good/bad, right/wrong,
two sides. My husband tells me he loves me, I’m his
 
perfect dream of a wife. I start to cry because I know I’m not
the good wife he thinks I am. The story in PSYCH of the boy
 
about 8 years-old, who was asked to sit in the backseat
of his parents’ car while his younger sister sat up front
 
between her parents, is an example. It was written before bucket
seats, seatbelts, when it was possible to sit three across.
 
The mother turned to her son in back to tell him what a good boy
he was and with that, the kid pours juice over his parents
 
and sister as they enter a tunnel. He’d been thinking of ways
to get rid of his sister so he could sit up front and couldn’t stand 

his mother thinking he was a good boy when he knew he wasn’t. 
I have dreams of getting in the car and driving away, wanting 

to be free from these responsibilities, to become another me 
with my 25-year-old face and 23-inch waist of yesteryear.