Think of Something Beautiful
By Barbara van der Vossen

Like when we ran laps around
The house in France, crawled
Through yellowed grass avoiding
Slugs, bare arms and legs
Sidled up to blue spruce
Tall and scented memories
Parents on the porch, pretended
Not to hear or see our spying
Game breathlessly narrated
Imagined, our minds turned inward
Porch-shaded wine and olives
Invisibility cloaked kids
The spiders hovering with babies
Beneath the windowsill we climbed
Through, careful to avoid
Their round creepy bodies
With our stucco scratched knees
We named the two ponies that lived
Down the bubbled asphalt road
That ruined shoes when we stepped
Past the barking shepherd, and past
Our Great-Uncle’s house, three
Aging brothers on one country road
Uncle Bernard had blackberries and
Uncle Jacques had fish, koi or gold
Opa had the round pool we whirled
Les oiseaux se lavent dans la piscine
Buckets of fromage neige
French voiced anime cartoons
In the mornings, we sung Beach Boys
Jumped antique beds against the rules
From one to other, and yelled
International nonsense about
Eskimo ice cream to the boys, across
The street next to the pigeon house
Read and re-read “Kruistocht
In Spijkerbroek” the translation
Of which doesn’t deserve to be
Named and maybe I’ll rewrite it
Flashlit in tented walls
On the nights we slept outside
Too dry earth once crumbled
Beneath my feet as I turned
And fell into the ditch with
Queen Anne’s Lace and white
Morning-glories, when we would hike
I found a baby bird one time
Brought it home and tried to save it
But magpies eat meat not seeds
So I didn’t, but I tried
Gasoline still smells like Opa’s garage
In my mind, hay rolls and burning
Brush only belong in Meillonnas
Childhood scented memories