our google earth.

i told you, mom, i'm coming home
tonight to 2014-- to the stupid
wide-toothed grin of our porch
painted evergreen & a blistering
maroon-- our mailbox's hand is 
raised as if trying to hitchhike 
away from town-- it wants to
join a corn field-- fill it's 
mouth with husks instead of 
junk mail-- years ago the 
picture from google earth used
to still have the two big 
trees in the front yard & long
after we cut them down
their ghosts haunted us from
the computer screen--
i would glance out the window 
from my desk to make
sure they were really gone--
i wonder where i was when they took
our house's picture with none
of us home-- got the big
old doors to smile pretty to 
join it's place in the 
collective collage of street views
for nostalgic children to wander home
to from laptop screens--
uncle rich's grey oldsmobile is
in the driveway--
the one that he got second hand that 
smelled like cigarettes--
in the backyard there's no
tiny christmas tree yet & the pile
of red stone makes a mountain beside the
garage that billy & i would 
sled down when it snowed--
it never seems to snow anymore
& i wonder what google earth
would look like if it would have taken
our picture that night 
in the dark when we built snow men
in that front lawn & laid on
our backs to look up at a hazy night
still laden with inches to come--
you told me we would have a two hour
delay or maybe the whole day off--
or if it would have caught us 
out on the porch that august with our 
pink lemonade stand-- you on the 
reclining chair shelling soy beans
into a sand bucket & me waiving
to the fast cars of noble street
as if they would stop for warm 
lemonade mixed by a 10 year old--
the image google earth chose of us
is starkly empty for everything that porch
has held-- it doesn't seem accurate 
for us & watching it there feels only vaguely
like a home-- 
i can tell it's a tuesday though
because the trash is out on the curb--
i wonder if we're inside at the kitchen
table-- if it's early & a sunday
& you're burning pancakes in  the cast
iron pan just the way i like 
while billy counts his plastic army men on the 
breakfast bar & looks out the window to
see a car pass slowly-- not knowing
it was telling the house
to "say cheese" for the rest of earth
to look back on--
when i knock that the door there
no one will hear it because it's 2017
& i visit home most times only
on google earth-- & i've started calling
this place "my parent's house"
but when i walk up back to 2014 into
the laughing mouth of the porch--
i'm swallow back again--
i'm standing outside a photograph 
of our home-- let's do it again--
plant a christmas tree--
sell pink lemonade to the windows 
of fast cars--
fall heavy in inches of snow--