When I was
three or four years old, I’d spend hours each day sitting in a great rusting
metal glider sofa on the screened-in front porch of our house in
Cleveland. I’d rock back and forth,
listening to the squeak of the hinges and watching the light post across the
street disappear and reappear from behind the frame of the screen.
I was
fascinated by the angles and shifting perspective of the window, the line of
the downspouts of the house across the street, the older kids on their bicycles
flashing by, the color of the road matching the roof shingles of the house next
door, the mail slot remaining immobile, except for that one second when the
mailman makes his drop, the low branches of the tree in our front yard moving
in and out of sight as I rocked. I
touched each finger of my hand to my mouth as I rocked, running through the
four fingers on the upswing and the same four fingers on the backswing.