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Of all the places I’ve never known there’s the one with apple trees, and green shutters that never close-- green shutters that never need to do more than frame the paintings being brushed inside. Four children, maybe more to come. But most of all, one roof. Most of all: all of us underneath it. And when it rains—which I know it sometimes must—what fun to just run from room to room, plunking down plastic buckets on the old oak floor. As if the worst a storm could do was tickle us. And that thunder too, a beat we do the Electric Slide to in our PJs. Wait! Can you smell that? Thousands and thousands of chocolate chip cookies baking. How their gooey warmth melts upon our tongues. Birthday sprinkles slide down the staircase, lit by the heat from a hundred tiny candles. Like a trick, even when blown out, how they seem to still be lit. Lookout! The pantry’s overstuffed with hugs. Now turn to the front-porch swings, hear their specific kind of cricket creaking— we rock so hard that we outbuzz mosquitos. Never quite sure if we’re watching the lilac sky of a sunrise or a sunset. Either way: never quite caring. And never quite knowing if such a place is real, or just a red front door with a cold gold knob-- but either way, here I am. Knocking. —KHD |