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Poem

Huddled under the Northern Michigan
Umbrellas
Popped open
With cherry bows of pink blossoms

Is our little family cabin

Not so much
Made of brown brick and mortar
Glued pounded and squared together
In the 1950s

But placed on a slab of summer sun
Face up
Shining on the tiffany tiles of Torch Lake

Built of stacked bunk beds
Ten of them
Hammered together with dad’s hands

Oiled with homemade lemonade
Poured by mom
To our baby bird mouths
Through the windows framed with leftover straw

Yes, the screen door still creaks on its rusty spring
Like a dorky doorbell from Father Knows Best

I can feel our newer neighbors salivating
With plans to expand their estates
From an upcoming fire sale

Every year they ask
How’s your mom and dad?

I douse their speculations with a quick “Great!”

But I know
And they know
Time is not on their side

I suppose we could sell to Chicago millionaires
Right now

Cash out
Like all the other generations around us
Replaced with vanity mansions of 30 or more barren rooms
And their manicured lawns poisoned with fertilizer
Dimming the lake each year to a darker shadow

Of itself

But I love our red wheelbarrow
And the cobwebs of the Milky Way
Swaying in the dusty corners
The rusty nails of our fights and screams
And wrestled nights with no air conditioning

I get up in the morning
Step over the fierce glare of sunrise
And the carnage of my folks
My brother and sister
And all those barracks of snoring kids

We will hold out
And hold on
To this sliver of light and water

If you don’t mind
Please
To wait a bit longer
Until we’ve completely and utterly finished

And then all this can be yours.

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