Protruding from past requisite
of family grocery, belieing present
euphemistic liquor store and parking lot,
enhancing landscaped contrivance of both plot
and bald-faced lie of land,

surround of shrub and bush gone topiary
of my growing-up, my self-taught
pianissimos, bass and treble joy
and grief and reconcile of divergency--
it stiffs nearby shadowing of auto

dealership, one-way traffic west,
one step-up only to canned goods,
meat block, pickle, candy, cookie jars,
coffee grinder, Octagon of bars
of soap, round steles of Quaker Oats,

It protrudes my exit entrance,
steppingstones my going in and out
of brick and concrete, wallpapers, sand
walls, gas-steam radiators, intermingled hand
and voice of flawed bedrooms, ice-cold

parlors, cellars, sheds, and backyard
privies of my structure of return
and linger--momentary monument to shards
of drive-by, accidental runes--the words,
unsaid, reinterpreting Rosettas of tombstone.