me in the key of B major – 60 Jubilee East, the bathroom
by richibi
me, at 54 Jubilee East, by the woodpile
___________
réveillez-vous, les enfants, my mother
would call, wake up children, it’s time
the vent that crouched between the
toilet and the wall that enclosed, at
a ninety degree angle to the toilet,
the tub
the vent allowed hot air to come up
from the oil furnace my dad ‘d only
recently put up in the basement, the
foundation for the house he would
slide the old chicken coop from the
back of the property onto, to build
our new home
where the bathroom would be, there’d
been a wood stove, we children would
dress there, beside the hot oven, then,
while my mom got ready for work, the
lady up front, in the only house that
had been there at the start of all this,
54 Jubilee East, now rented from my
folks, and took care of us while both
my parents were working
I very vaguely remember this, but I
remember well heading towards the
heat, putting on my socks,
underclothes, there, until the chill
fell out of the morning
often my sister got there first, but I did
so also often, there was never any
dissension, we were two consensual
peas in a pod, each the other’s keeper
my mother had had to chop wood, she
told me, and haul water, during the winter
my dad had gone north to work, up near
she’d heat the water on the stove, there
was no electricity, nor power tools, my
aunt, her sister, had had to chop the
wood cause my mother couldn’t
manage, the axe ‘d bounce off the
block she’d be trying to chop
my dad ‘d set up timber against our
meagre living quarters, what I’d later
call, sardonically, our manger, to
supply my mom for the winter he’d
be gone
my mother couldn’t’ve been more than
twenty years old, then, her sister a few
years younger, my own sister had barely
I would’ve
Richard
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