149 beach 140th st.

goldie knew the importance of small spaces
and burrowed her things in nooks the way i'd add stones to jars
(large as fists then palms then pennies then small as promises)
and around her house there was no place not anchored down
by salvaged items and her quick steps

under her bed she kept locks of her children's hair
in paper bags folded down and dated
she kept the receipts of the grocer from greenpoint
under her mattress and jars of fat below the stairs

she kept money in a box of throat lozenges underneath the sink
and folded her clothing like omelets and stood them straight up in her dresser drawers
and moving and pacing as though about to be trapped
she hung her linens on hangers like a jacob's ladder
one beneath one beneath one beneath

it was not the depression, she told her son
it was rockaway
these apartments are like caves with closets
and she folded her kitchen table down from the wall
i have to make space possible
i have to stay moving

years later i asked my grandfather what had happened to her eyes
gouged out and cloudy like the low hanging clouds
and he said it was just the photograph
because the photographer had risen his arm and told them to hold it
and his arm stayed silent and tense for a full minute
but goldie's eyes did not
and wandered around the room, to the large windows and high ceilings of the photographer's studio and thought of his empty rooms
she had thought he only wanted her body to be still

as though a deer sensing a great fire
goldie knew to store all those photos in the attic
so when it flooded from the navy yard to my grandfather's bedroom
goldie went to the attic and fished the photos out
trembling and pacing and thumbing them one more time
beat by beat, face by face, understanding everything
rain crowding the corners of the room
she folded as many people as would fit beneath her blouse

acknowledging the inevitable
she went to the window to see if she should swim