My babysitter regaled us with ancient tales,
Stories of her exploding green appendix,
And dark nights spent sneaking from her room
Above the front door, to run away and smoke
Marijuana with her friends in the parks of
Suburban New England.
She slept with vipers and played with their
Rattles in her mouth and recommended the
Act of biting the hand that feeds you, if not her own.
She made love to ghosts and ad executives upon
The most sacred spots in the Boston area
And dreamt of running away with a bushman
To the deep caves of Australia where they
Would search for single-celled life
And call attention to the undeniable fact
Of the vast age of our blue, bobbing rock.
She was a reformed Christian and wanted to
Leave no stone unturned in our lives, give us
No opportunity to waste any of the minutes allotted to us.
She believed in divination and table tapping,
And hated Houdini for his brash arrogance,
Calling down holy curses on his long dead soul.
She told us four boys to make lists of all the things we wanted
To do in life, but were not allowed to: this was
Our mission, to complete them all before we died.
We made her pronounce the word ‘Father’
And laughed when she said ‘Fahthuh’ and we
Told her she said it all wrong, but then she proved
She could say it correctly, like Jesus among the Pharisees
Calling out some spiritual infestation
From the body of a blind child,
Which astounded us, cemented the need within us.
I still have my list, brown and crumpled, dismally absent of
The check-marks she foresaw.
If she dies, she will haunt me, but I heard she
Runs a daycare and teaches yoga these days.