Anyway, she gets the Frigidaire at the end,
and she believes there's a wild child that
lives with the cows in the gully, and lots of things
happened.
And from my last little bit, I'll read you the first--
I don't know where the story is now,
but anyway, a story called "Sundress."
It's the same two characters--
Ernie and this voice.
And she still wears a sundress.
And it must be later in their life--
I got all these ideas and dreams.
I'm not responsible for some of it.
Anyway, it's called "Sundress."
"It's a terrible thing to be kicked out.
I hold the kicked-out birdcage, the kicked-out double geranium,
and the kicked-out dog.
But after we look at all this kicked-out stuff,
there really isn't much we want.
I mean, those pillows have seen heads.
So we leave the birdcage and flower
with the ironing boards in hope of Stayprest and recycling,
and go for a walk.
Ernie in his most impressive Just-A-Moment-Sir suit,
which he puts on as a sort of armor this morning,
and I in my sundress off-the-shoulder,
with a pattern swirly and close, one that if you look too long
at, well, instead of being thanked, you get kicked out.
The walk goes into the subway and out to the suburbs.
Ernie walks with the dog's leash held high
and his own saggy chin tilted, scenting promise
because what else?
I bring up the rear with the two mostly empty bags bumping
syncopated on a carrier up and down the high curbs
they have here.
We don't go far.
Ernie comes up with a couple of nearly last bills
and buys sodas, something with a lot of escape, he says,
and we sip them outside the store,
looking at wide lawns and white houses.
We don't talk.
I know Ernie from the beginning, from when we crossed twice
in foster homes.
We had luck and not luck after leaving fifty years between us
and them, and now I can see, even with dime-store bifocals,
Ernie is already thinking up some new way,
taking in the neighborhood with his careful old-man looks
over soda.
After a while he calls a taxi.
I'm not surprised at the why, not to mention the
where, for those are the very, very last bills
he is now waving.
This Ernie is quick as well as silent.
I am seated inside before I hear him say--
Three times around the block and make it snappy.
We stop in front of the house we'd stared out over sodas
and pull right into the driveway.
Ernie pops out and surveys the short walk
to the door, all mystery and smiles.
The driver says as I whip out the two suitcases,
They're not home, and he slips his gears into reverse.
We are, says Ernie and pays him.
The driver looks at me in my sundress,
then he takes his time backing out, but finally does gun
off when Ernie settles the bags on the front step.
Then Ernie pats me on my bare shoulder and says,
I'll be just a minute, and ducks out
to the stucco-front neighbors.
But what exactly does he say to the blonde with curls
down to here and a face of collapsed Saran Wrap
to have her hand over the house keys?
To me not more than a minute later
he says, We're the Olsen's first cousins,
and tosses his almost white anybody-cousin hair
out of this part to open the door with the key.
While he gets the bags, I like it.
I like the dark wood, the books, the lots of things to dust.
There's a place for the rag under the sink
and secret spots for the laundry.
When I opened the fridge, it is so empty,
it's like a bulldozed half-building.
But the pantry is walk in olives and Sherry.
Not like the last with its locks,
with its May I this and that, it's curtsy and shuffle.
Being help is the foster home forever.
Hey, Ernie!
I yell.
Handling a quart of homemade piccalilli, but Ernie is out.
From the picture window I catch him,
changed into his only other outfit, patched dungarees,
wringing a wrench against the neighbor's stuck ex.
The woman with the stucco waves at me
as soon as Ernie fixes it, wiping his hands and wrench
on his clean shirtfront, then accepting
her invite to come in, wash up, and no doubt, eat cookies.
The woman at the window has cookie and a Saran Wrap face,
not sex which is flatter.
He goes in.
I don't panic at being so elsewhere so fast.
I know Ernie.
Ernie will talk us up, we will stay the night,
the night is something.
I open cocktail wieners and feed them singly
to the dog, who likes the smell of dark wood and low books,
but does not mark anything, not once.
When Ernie comes back we agree, night is something.
But we are there weeks and weeks."