Circa 1949: An Anaphoric Poem

I remember icicles that stretched from the roof to the ground

I remember pulling bloodsuckers from between our toes after swimming

I remember lugging my red wagon to the city dump with my dad to bring home good stuff

I remember capturing garter snakes from under the rocks in my mother’s garden

I remember swimming across the river with my dad following in the rowboat

I remember listening in on the neighbors on our party-line phone

I remember a flock of pheasants parading through our front yard

I remember stealing carrots and blackberries from Mrs. Mead’s garden

I remember when our road turned to mud in the spring and we couldn’t go to school

I remember climbing with my siblings to the top of the willow tree

I remember being scared of quicksand when we walked in waist-deep water to Mr. Shaver’s

I remember slashing my thumb with a hatchet on a Pig Island camping trip

I remember biking to the Ideal Dairy to buy lemon flake ice cream, two dips for a nickel

I remember the six-foot pine snakes that sunned in our front yard

I remember when our Irish Setter Mike fell through the ice and my mother rescued him

I remember poking sticks into an anthill and watching the ants go crazy

I remember my eating mother’s whitefish, pot roast, and potato sausage

I remember counting “I love you, I love you not” with the petals of a Black-Eyed Susan

I remember running barefoot races in the snow

I remember my dad towing us behind the car on our toboggan

I remember listening to Jack Benny and Duffy’s Tavern on Sunday night radio

I remember emptying dead bodies from the mousetraps

I remember when they opened the dams and drained all the water out of the river

I remember finding lost change under the sofa cushions (which my dad had

deliberately put there)

I remember when I threw acorns at my brother and he fell out of the oak tree

I remember singing “Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall” at the outdoor fireplace

I remember my parents and their friends drinking Silver Cream beer

I remember when we killed the flying bat in our living room with a cast iron frying pan

I remember loving Captain Marvel comic books

I remember when the ice went out on “Chinese Bells Day”

I remember my uncle Karl urging me to dig up the “Indian burial mound” in our

back yard

I remember when Steve and I spilled red airplane dope on our brand new carpet

I remember being scared of the ghosts while riding my bike past the cemetery at night

I remember blowing milkweed seeds into the wind

I remember when Steve shot the snapping turtle with our bow and arrow

I remember my mother telling me I wasn’t perfect

I remember our dog swimming behind the boat when we traveled half a mile for a family 

picnic on Indian Island

I remember when we saw a mud puppy through the ice on the river’s floor

I remember collecting nightcrawlers for fishing on the cemetery lawn after a heavy rain

I remember when our dog Mike got porcupine quills stuck in his nose

I remember when Steve and I lit the hoop with a desk lamp so we could

play basketball at night on the frozen driveway

I remember when we shot at tin cans and bottles in the river with the twenty-two

I remember everything about being twelve years old