Ladder to the Roof | Brett Averitt, now available from Gallery of Readers Press
We inherited a roof garden, as well as
The ladder Hermes left behind after
He’d invented escape, trapped only by memory
Of his invention of cunning and theft.
After a fancy education had worked
Its magic, he moved to California.
The plants he planted bloomed all day
And night through the long days of summer.
By October the silver light (which does look like
Spilt milk in the sky) meant
That we’d eaten the passion fruit and spit
The seeds and finally remembered real hunger,
Ours and yours and yours.
The roof lines of our neighbors’ houses
Show through bare trees now:
The saddle, the hip or gambrel.
From any roof the ordinary feels
Strange, the strange ordinary, snapped back
From a thought you may never
Have had or remembered otherwise,
Had the roof garden and the ladder
Not given us this view.
