Bearded iris, buttercup, feverfew,
Queen Annis lace grow as if tended
along this river, their fragrance masks
the old sock smell of paper mill.
Mr. McCollom, like Charon, ferries
sleepy, longshoring souls across the water.
Foghorns bray over the bed where my sister
and I sleep beneath chenille peacocks.

Under the bridge, picnics on summer nights,
deep drop-offs Jules Verne grottos
that leave us forever afraid to swim.
After deviled eggs our mother serves floating
island from her mother's cut glass compote.
Strawberries stain its creamy depths.
When we unwrap it from old Oregonian
years after she is gone, it is dulled, smaller
than we remember.

On the table garden flowers
from another visit have dried
to a dark, bloody brown.
We're trying to get warm
he says as I wake him from that place
where he now lives.
It's this arctic ice, thick
and we have to chip through it.

A few weeks ago it was the Spice Islands.
We're going there
he told me that day, wide blue eyes thickened
with what he has seen and I cannot.
No, we are
voice blurred, testy
on a tramp steamer,
the kids, too.

The polar expedition is more his style,
but either place beats this bed with padded sides
like those we put in our firstborn's crib.
At its ratcheted iron foot, on an out-of-focus
screen, a shortstop misses the ball.