I Don’t Remember Camping

I don’t remember going camping

when I was about six.

I do remember heading up into the woods

with my mother and her friend.

I remember asking them to wait a minute,

then being upset

that they counted out a full minute

when I only needed ten seconds.

I don’t remember pitching the tent.

I’ve decided it is purple,

with pink zippers

to match the surrounding foliage.

It is seven stories tall and has spiraling staircases

that make me a little seasick to look at.

My brother climbs the stairs,

but I do not.

I insist on sleeping in the “Grand Room” on the lowest floor

where I can look out the plastic filmy windows

at the six-foot bugs

harvesting hempseeds for their smoothies.

I also don’t remember

the vault toilets

situated three miles away,

on the crest of a hill

overlooking the valley in which the tent is pitched,

or the contemplation,

in my young mind,

as to what that hill was made of.

I don’t remember

drinking the juice of the eight-foot grapes

or riding through the air on the giant parachuting seeds

of the surrounding mutant dandelions

that overshadowed our tent.

I don’t remember being asked what I wanted.

But if I had,

I would have said I wanted to stay home.

I would have said that home is a miracle.

It is filled with more amazing and bizarre instances of life than I could possibly reconcile.

I would have asked for a pebble to keep in my pocket,

to hold me to the Earth.