Poetry

The sounds of summer at the Highway 24 house was mom's dishwasher churning on an endless cycle, bearing a load of soiled dishes from the most recent feeding of us nine kids, passing semitruck brakes shrieking to a stop at the bottom of Radar Hill, and the lawn mower. How I always avoided the dreaded task of mowing the lawn is a lucky coincidence. I happened to have two older brothers and at only 10-11, was just a bit too small and weak to push the mower in a straight line.
After Drew or Dustin had finished the task, and the white New Balance sneakers stained with streaks of green were tossed on the show shelf , I could sit under the blue sky on the trampoline and read my book, with sweet smells of overturned dirt and cut grass perfuming the air. Sometimes I would write. Not stories or poems, but just write to feel the satisfaction of the ink gliding from the pen to the paper and the thrill of forming letters with perfect penmanship.
My grandmother had a book of poems at her house that I loved, so I took it. The poems were about the colors of the rainbow and I loved to read them and imagine them. Each color was it's own poem, and I laid belly-down on the black canvas and copied those lovely poems into my steno notebook. When I finished, I ripped the pages out, and  not sure what I would do with them, left them side the cover of the book.
Weeks later, I found the book and knew I should return to to grandmas. After school, I walked across the playground and down Catalpa street to the house with the giant split Birch tree. This was a walk I frequented two or three times per week, usually to help with the paper route. That's why I walked that road today, but before I started folding and banding the papers I returned the book, removing my copied pages. The pages were left with my book bag on the pleather couch while I did my section of the paper route.
By the time I returned to Catalpa street, the book of poems was completely forgotten, and I settled in to watch "Law and Order" with grandpa while waiting for dad to pick me up after work to take me home.
Days later, my grandmother found those copied pages, and was amazed by the poems. She congratulated me with a dumbfounded look and a smile, wondering how I had hid this talent. I never had the heart to tell her I didn't write them.