Everland

Those mornings were noisy things.
I awoke to hammers knocked on nails
like expectations knock on dreams,
wanting them to live, to believe

faith is born in spring when Daddy
fit latticework to a bench. Saturday,
when even rain was sunny, expectation
wore shorts, pedaled round the block
on a blue ten-speed with hand brakes.

Is faith hammered from memory,
brushed on a crooked bench
with an arc of climbing roses
like ribbons, the vines dropping
through uneven boards, spilling
rainy sun perfume on a little girl
who sits and reads and dreams?

Love smells like varnish,
feels like rose petals slipping
in the breeze of a secret spot.

Someday I despair of ever
finding somewhere safe again,
but turning the page second star
to the right and flying straight on
till morning, am redeemed,
not in a dream that never was,
but once upon a Saturday
with roses and a book.