The Red House
The Eastman Kodak Polaroid is the primary document of the 1970s,
and my fly is open after the
trip to Waterville, my right hand thrust outward, the 25 cent power
ring commanding the photographer who sailed a kite to the sky.
The photographer who asked me about goats and signed my permission
slip, the photographer who sang “This Is It” with me while Marvin the Martian marched
across the Philco screen with his retinue on Saturday morning next to the earthen carpet
burned by cigarettes in the red house.
And here is what I will do.
Looking out over the Oliver Farm into the mill valley
where the West Branch of the Sheepscot runs, hoping to fade as the Polaroid
should have done, fade out of this hill and this time
until I dissolve
into the cigarette smoke wisps I can smell even now, ringing around the
earthen carpet and the Philco and the Looney Tunes and Marvin and the kite and hope that
the photographer, my father,
will sing with me again.
