Will you remember

how we drove down the street after bedtime
just to see how the Christmas lights looked
over the ignited portico of our house;

how we made so many promises
like the promise to move to the country,
(the one we kept).

How you wanted horses and chickens
in the country house,

but the move cost us so much
and the remodel,
fixing the family car
and propane in the winter—

that the fence would have to wait
and the barn
and invariably the horses and chickens.

How you forgave us all of the above
everytime we turned pirouettes in the kitchen
and used different voices
to read Robert Frost on the occasion of each snowfall
and Shakespeare in English accents
under the balcony of your painted rooms
during those early childhood years.

How you gave us so much more than we could ever give you
(but hope it didn’t feel that way)
even when it was hard
to keep each other close.

That much like sonnet and free verse,
being the parent
and being the child
are two different kinds of poetry.