At that age, even the telephone (rotary dial,
absence of digital screen) brought out the tongue-
tied in me. You would find it harder to believe
than the war waged one Saturday morning
between my mother and her mother-in-law,
their arsenal of green bananas making fist-sized
dents on the kitchen door screen. I ran
away from the shoemaker and his clunky heels,
insisting I didn’t have polio. At heart
I’m a homebody. I like to draw
circles in a dish holding sand. I widen
the halls in that labyrinth and knit
the minotaur a scarf. He visits me
between clients. We like to take a walk
at dusk down by the waterside, following
the red thread back to its source.