Mrs. Johnson's House

The house across the street
had cactus/cacti on the porch,
a tomato garden in the back,
stray kittens to give away, and
radio church every Sunday morning.

Year after year
Mrs. Johnson always told me
that she would sew a nice
dress for school if only
I would stop biting my nails.

And in the summers with
her grandchildren visiting
from New Mexico, spending days
anticipating sparklers, black
cats and sidewalk noisemakers,

evenings we caught lightning bugs
saved in glass jars with air-holed lids,
Venetia gathering pulled up grass for
them to hide in, Reynaldo tearing almost
like a flash out of the house half dressed

and untoweled into another humid backyard
night immediately after an adult imposed
bath, mom-shouts trailing after him like
water drops from the heels,
"Don't you go outside yet..."

Ask him what for, he'll grin wide
everytime... "I don't know, I just did."