Raking (revised)

Raking

Soon, the neighborhood boys will knock
on my door, ask if today is the day.
For three weeks now, I've put them off,
ignored their knocks, hidden
behind doors so they couldn't see me,

held my breath so even I would stop
believing I existed. Because they wish
to rake my leaves, earn some money,
speak the way excited children do
when someone takes a chance on them,

make my world a bit tidier, I cower? Perhaps
because their eyes belie the facade, my own
cannot rise to meet theirs, to see yesterday
looking back at me, to stare into memory
until she becomes incarnate in her plaid

shirt and worn jeans, and her reluctance
to go home will surround me like the fine
webs which clung to her face as she bedded
down in the leaf piles, no mother calling
her in for dinner from the chilled house.

So, they frighten me, these boys, for all
they are or could be or may possess.
But today I'll answer. I'll go to the potting
shed and dig out two rakes and the leaf
bags from last year. I'll give them an hour

or so of good raking time before I start
the milk for some hot cocoa, watch them
through the back window, allow myself
to disappear into the shadows of a childhood
never fully realized and only partially true.