birch trees from three houses by dave malloy

SUSAN
my grandmother’s house
stands beyond a grove of thin white birch trees.
you can peel the bark;
it rolls up like a cigar.
you can press it to your lips,
whistle a birch bird song.

coming up the drive,
white gravel crunches at your feet.
one gets in your shoe,
nibbles at your toes.

and the birds;
the air is latticed with birds of brilliant colors.
cerulean crests,
vermilion breasts.
and butterflies flutter by
in bursts of ochre and amber.

now i had been in finland at a blacksmithing festival,
researching my next novel.
and i didn’t have any money
and the flights were a mess.
and i didn’t have any reason to go back to new york.
and so i went to latvia.

i never really knew my grandmama—
a static birthday phone call every year or two.
my mother said she’d always been a hermit.
grandpapa left them both.
and when she died, some six years ago,
her home was left behind
in the trust of a transylvanian caretaker.

and so
my grandmother’s house
stood silent and empty,
waiting for me.

(a ghostly porch swing fades onto the stage. sitting in the middle of it is grandmother. she dances from the swing a bit.)

on the porch there is a wooden swing
hung on rusty thin chains.
i’d sit there in the evening,
think of grandmama doing the same.

did she sit on the left side?
or did she sit on the right?
or the middle…
i sat in the middle,
listening to the phasing crickets.

i’d think about my grandmama
and i’d think about my ex.
stare up at the stars
and smoke another cigarette.
at night
the birch trees stand like ghosts.

when you’re nursing a heartache
sometimes you look back.
trying to find the reasons
your life has gone off track.

parents and grandparents,
every branch along the tree.
trying to trace the tumor
that ended up in me.

and the birch trees stand like ghosts.
oh the birch trees stand like ghosts.

(grandmother and the swing disappear.)

• Experimental
• theatre
• New York