(This is not a poem about what happened last night, who said what, or who won. And this is not a poem about how much we all wish this were finally over)
The summer after we sold our beach house in Woodmont, Connecticut
43 Hillside Avenue a house I loved a place I loved
big and green with porches on two sides right over a pebbly inlet
of the Long Island Sound we could see water every day
and I could walk, for years, a few houses down to pick up
Abby Glazer or she could walk to me the summer after we sold the beach
house where we could just wander I took a debating class
at Amity High School Summer school and although I don’t remember
one subject we debated I do remember coming home every day
trying out techniques at dinner. Let’s debate going to
outer space I’d ask my patient father my impatient mother
my brother four years younger 12 and after
a few days my mother said How Many Weeks is This Class
and my father, a little gentler, said If You Still Want to Do This
Later You Can Go to Law School and that was that.
Of course I liked this post. My memories of Hillside Avenue–at my house at 27 and yours at 43– remain amongst my happiest.
I still regret that my parents sold that cottage.
ME TOO. ON ALL COUNTS. WE COULD STILL HAVE THOSE HOUSES. I WISH WE DID. LOVE