Somewhere, A Harmonica

“I was the awkward guest everybody hardly knew.”

From “The Burning Girl” by Mary Karr

I was the pink kid’s tambourine, and the sun that you could only look at sideways. I was the frozen winter clarity you sought, to clear your head. I was the last best option, unto death. I was the freaky way you moved your arms when you sensed the mosquito at your ear, that June Saturday, when we were twelve and trying to build our own flying saucer in the yard. I was the hammer that lost its handle, and the bedroom window that kept banging in the wind. I was the friendly way the truckers always waved when driving by our house. I was the worried dream you woke from, forgetting where your heart was positioned in your body. I was the striped shadows that wandered across the floor at night, and the sound of the little bell on the rust-red cat. And I was the cluttered attic that waited for you, when you needed to cross over to the world of memory.