Things You Can Live Without

by George Wallace

there was a hill with a tree.
there was a house with tall windows.
there was a horse in a yellow field
and a rope swing strung from
the branch of a black walnut tree.
and a pathway made of blue slate
and water f lowing out of an old rusty pump.
there was dandelion wine and mousetraps
and a shady spot beside a garden gate to watch the clouds.
and besides that there was strips of f lypaper
and the sound of baby foxes calling out to each other.
and a hill, a hill. a hill you could sit on and listen for baby

foxes.
there was wasps nests big as paper lanterns,
and bats in the fireplace and a firepit by the pond,
and a view all the way down the valley,
and a rooster which WAS crowing before it was dawn.
shall we call it bucolic? shall we call it real?
the smokehouse door where he cured hams and drank alone.
the fence at the edge of the pasture where he wondered about

places you and him had never been.
you put the children on the school bus.
you perfected raspberry jam.
you even tried to make swiss cheese
and you fashioned christmas ornaments for the tree
from clay and paper and a little bit of string.
you made love to him in the hayloft,
and in the oldsmobile,
and in the master bedroom,
and eventually, not at all.
the furnace broke
the redbuds froze
the bills came due
and you died a little more every year.
and one day he just up and left you.