I Remember
[from an in-class writing exercise; apologies to Joe Brainard]
I remember strawberry Shasta.
I remember chocolate chips in front of the tv with Joe. I remember how close to the tv we would sit and how the tv was a piece of furniture. I remember how the word "Special" would spin around.
I remember The Wizard of Oz and how I would inch toward the stairs during the flying monkeys.
I remember hanging onto my grandmother's hips.
I remember going back downstairs and the field of poppies.
I remember she would wake up in Kansas too soon, and what if I woke up in Kansas. Everyone would be around my bed, but would I miss Oz?
I remember the creek we shouldn't go in because it was downstream from a meatpacking plant.
I remember Joe saying he saw a cow skull in there.
I remember a nightmare that I had to hide under my quilt with the leaves because there were Nazis in our neighborhood, and would the quilt hide me?
I remember that I was a girl with dark hair under the quilt, alone by the bridge over the slaughterhouse creek. The Nazi boots walked on by, but would I make it back home?
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