Michigan Avenue

I turned the corner
onto the street where
we used to live.
It didn't look anything
like what I remembered.
The house there to my left
is where I used to babysit
the Pastor's kids.
Back around the corner
down the block on the next corner
is where one of the kids
on my baseball team lived.
I was told his face was cut up
by a broken bottle in a street fight.
In the house next to theirs
is where the kid shot himself.
My teammate's little brother found him.

Down the street some
a house becomes familiar.
The place always looked bad,
unkempt lawn, bikes and mowers
laying around the yard,
shutters looking like they would fall off.
It's where the kid lived
that pulled a knife on our neighbor.
The neighbor was the youngest of three.
The middle one went back and beat the kid up,
broke his hand in the process.
The oldest boy married my best friend from high school.
I wasn't invited to the wedding.

And so here we are.
3602 Michigan Avenue.
It doesn't look like the place where I grew up.
It just looks like a house.
Inside, nothing seems the same.
That's my room there on the left.
The furniture is still there.
The oak desk my grandfather gave me
still looks like new.
The grain polished smooth to the touch.
They don't make furniture like that anymore.
The bed looks like no one has slept in it in years,
but I don't recall those covers on it.

I expected a more haunting feeling
given all that had happened,
but not even the ghosts remained.
The sheets they used to wear
were folded and neatly stacked on the dresser.
I could see one of the holes
that they had cut for their eyes.
Nothing felt right. Nothing seemed right.
Only the dust was as I had left it
some 25 years ago.
Not a spec out of place.