let me dream in the color of forgotten love

In kindergarten

at the top of Paradise Lane

I lived in the Paradise House

just below the irrigation ditch that stretched from Ashland to Talent

I walked lazily up the long roads 

finding new ways home from school

the park where I would stop to gather red berries

that I would throw at invisible foes

or through the church parking lot

with tree roots breaking through the asphalt 

or I would stop and feed grass to the pony at the bottom of the hill

I walked

dreaming and I was alone and if you lived in the Paradise House that was rare

I tell my mom stories she never knew from when I was a girl

I sang the pack of dogs away

circling with hackles bristling and yellow eyes watching

One by one those six dogs departed—

I could see my house up around the bend

only the final gravel driveway and then maybe a banana—

until the one mean final dog that had been watching show—

the one I had not seen—lurking in the balcony

waited till the other dogs allowed me to pass

before in leaps and bounds came charging

teeth and fur and leaping saliva flowing onto the ground

as his owner swooped in and arms circling and lifting snapped me up into the air

just as teeth closed around the fabric of my sock

and my mom

said I never knew about the other dogs

the ones you sang away

so that you wouldn't be eaten or torn to shreds as the circled you—

your knees and shorts and elbows at right angles—

It is no wonder you were so upset

because at the Paradise House

being charged by a beast 

and having clothing torn from bones and legs

to just in time the stranger arms are too soft and

whose mouth says—

usually the children have all been by here already,

I wait to let her out till they've all gone home—

sweeps in and saves me stitches and pain

is ordinary