Top Car, Freeze Car, Fremont, OH

Top Car, Freeze Car, Fremont, OH

We ran up the hill.
Car from the top:
We all must race down;
Car from the bottom:

Froze us still:
Top car: freeze car.
At the top of the
Hill lay an unused

Rail track; the bottom:
Gramma's house, but
Also beyond. The boundaries
Were moveable and

Moved. The Elders often
Played with us.
The ghost of my
Future, forty-seven-

Year-old self yells, "Run,
Run, you motherfuckers!
Run!" They don't listen.
They don't know any

Better. How could
They? Those Widmans,
Those Elders, running,
Or not running, up

Or down, Park Avenue.
Run up, make a left
And go direct to
Spiegel Grove and

The Hayes Museum: hills
Full of snow for sledding
In the memories of
Our parents' parents. Ohio.

Our parents lived far
Outside of town, where
There was no sledding
Only flat Ohio, work,

Work, fields, words, grapes,
Cows, and popcorn. I
Return to that house in Fremont:
My mother kissing my

Grandfather goodbye on
The porch, the railing
Hardly higher, now, than my
Knee, in a picture, on

Her wedding day, in
My mind. I wander that
House, in my dreams,
While trying to fall

Asleep; my grand-
Mother's mind, so simple,
So full of snapdragons;
Pink, home-made apple

Sauce, hot in the bowl at
Dinner; lemon meringue
Pies; marbles popping in
The kettle; basement dirt floor;

Lightning rods, glass spheres;
Fourteen, hand-sewn, Christmas
Stockings lining the dark,
Shiny stair rail; fireflies; attic

Stairs; old prom dresses
In a musty trunk; her mind, so
Huge, so much bigger
Than us: so loving and

Careful: a structure,
Far-reaching, far bigger
Than the Internet.
I can't tell where her

Mind leaves off and
Mind begins. My
Aunt mentioned she
Was a worrier before

Her funeral--and so
We all are, we
Widmans. Fear
Is Love. Love

Is Space. Space
Is Time. She
Loves us
Now, here. I

Walk this
House, now. I.
I, I, I, I.
I.

L. Steve Schmersal, Top Car; Freeze Car, Fremont, OH, July 2015