several chairs in the statue garden at the brookly museum 

my family sitting in all different directions.
brothers are like compass needles
or maybe just like regular needles.
i love them. i miss them even when
they are right in front of me. 
we are testing out the chairs. 
it is hot july & the sky is full
of finger prints. they are visiting.
they drove across states to see me:
all of them sitting in a whirling metal box. 
i have two chairs 
waiting in my bare apartment. 
they are plastic & in need of revision.
i often sit on the floor instead & pretend 
i am perched elsewhere. every apartment
has felt like my first. i keep wondering
when i will feel like i live somewhere
separate from them. i picture 
the chairs in their house: 
the red twisty living room ones
& the four stools at breakfast counter. how could anyone
sense a new chair? 
the birds in the garden sit to look at us.
one chair is round & low. another chair
is woven almost like a basket. the basket
makes me feel like a bushel of peaches. my mother sits back 
on a reclining square chair.
the statues in the garden stand up tall.
they can't sit like we can. they glare
with jealousy. my father does not sit;
he paces which is typical for him. he inspects
the chairs passing judgements on them from above.
this one is too round this one is too squat
this one would never work.
each of us are a kind of chair.
i have sat on both my mother & my father's laps
& my brothers have sat on mine.
we could all be standing on a huge chair
at any given moment. i picture
rows of folding chairs covering a field
then in lines up & down the streets.
so many chairs to collapse. my family sits
scattered. we don't talk about anything
but chairs. i like this one. not this one. 
a breeze cuts through 
our sweat. an ice cream truck sings far away
of its own sweet cold chair. 
our feet are thankful for the chairs.
soon we will go back to my apartment 
& sit on the floor together.
i will apologize over & over
for my lack of chairs. they will say
it's alright don't worry don't worry.
without chairs we looked like we were hiding.
a circle on the hard wood floor. 
they leave soon after. i lay down
& stair up at the ceiling,
imagining rows of chairs there too.