I remember borrowing
a pogo stick from a girl
named Martha one Good Friday
morning in a snowstorm.

I pogo up and down the empty street,
addicted to the bounce
and giving in
to motion’s victory over imbalance.

I hear Ian Brown
of the Stone Roses sing:

“see land begin to clear
free from the filth and scum”

So cursed with unusually good
vestibular function,
I remember vomiting
on a Middletown cop’s boot.

That time had nothing to do
with my inner ear.
That time has everything to do
with having to declare I'm one too.

I remember falling a little bit
for the best friend
of my man’s younger brother
(those damn Minnesota boys).

My oldest sister got to have the crushes first.
I got her hand-me-downs.

The friend dares the brother
to swipe a pair of his ma’s pantyhose
to use as a net for catching crayfish
in Minnehaha Creek.

A cataract, a clinker,
a list of reminders begins:

charcoal pills and razors
hair elastics and Venetian blinds
cleaner and Muddy
Waters menus and cocktail napkins

two rolls of KT tape
and two travel size bottles
of nonalcoholic mouthwash
just in case

That clinker in the right eye
was in the left last night.

I know the woman
who discovers a hole in the deck
of the Osceola Bridge while on a canoe trip
down the Saint Croix with her pilot husband.

That is her husband who is a pilot,
not a trial husband
who might get canceled
after one season.

I remember all the days I wasted
waiting for my life to spill forth.

“she’ll carry on through it all
she's a waterfall”