Proving Grounds, The

Fountainheads

49 FounTAinheAds The house my parents built Was redwood And long glass windows, Hand-picked slate and feldspar For the double fireplace inside. They poured the foundation Together, found the right shade Of honed bluestone for shelves Where my mother laid those hand-carved Canadian geese she saved fourteen months To buy him. He’d stand back and look at them And nod his head like everything Was coming together straight. My dog died there, my little sister Grew to four feet. In six years the redwood Turned gray, and my father Burned the geese in the fireplace Just to show that he could, To show how nothing Means anything, that His hands were incapable Of leaving prints. I buried my dog in the glen Behind the pine trees, A small knoll to the side of the brook. Years later, when I go to see For myself if that redwood house Could have been just as beautiful, Just as terrible, as I remembered it was, The first place the woman living there Took me to see was Sammy’s grave, 50 Showed me the flowers she’d planted Around it, violets and marigolds, Sunflower red. She showed me My old plastic riding horse she’d kept In the basement, and I wondered As she touched his molded mane Her hand’s quiet, gentle, strokes If ever walking around the house She could hear us, ever see Marks smashed-up dishes Left on walls, Or the silhouettes Of our bodies thrown against them, But her voice was so calm I knew She didn’t. No one can hear That thump or those voices, the thick Smell of beer, can’t see. The print he left is me. ...