2525 Ashland Avenue

Literary Review, Spring, 2004 by Ginnie Goulet Gavrin

2525 Ashland Avenue

Chicago-style bungalows, squat as brood hens
in the beat-down, late-day sun. A stuffy breeze
pestered blades of grass while sidewalk squares
lay littered with riderless tricycles,
the abandoned geometry of hopscotch.
In front of our house, parked by the steps,
half-hidden beside evergreens--
there was a baby carriage.
And then there was not.

My mother did what she had--
what everybody had--done a hundred
times before. Dashed inside for just one sec
(the phone ringing in a friendly jingle).
Then, back outside in a jif, her hand
fluttering from her chest to the pink,
twitchy flush of her face. One step
toward the empty evergreens. One back,
before she ran down the street, the word,
Gone, choking at the back of her throat.

Neighbors searched every back seat
of every parked car. Scoured the vacant
lot, the alley, the somber dark sanctuary
of St. Athanasius church across the street.
The police arrived, promised nothing.

But found her anyway. Seven blocks away
they arrested a small crazy lady singing
lullabies under the Chicago & Northwestern
viaduct, her fingers locked around the handles
of our carriage, my sister quiet under blankets,
sound asleep while trains roared overhead.

That night my mother praised all our happiness
and good luck. Around the dark house and yard
fear hung back, not finished with us yet, or ever,
but waiting, like a door left open in a dream.