Anais Nin

I lived in Los Angeles
when Anais Nin lived
in a house in Echo Park.
                   an invisible house.

a triangular corner
above Silver lake
under trees (probably bamboo and eucalyptus)
and a brown shingled roof, triangular too, I recall.
                   obscured.

Nin, 70-something, was there. Invisible,
and I, at fourteen fifteen sixteen, had read
her books and she lived, there.

I saw the brown roof and the trees
from the steps of my cousin Damon's house
but I never saw her. and was not
that bold kind of child
they make movies of - who go where they shouldn't
and find magic or a door.

My aunt told me she lived there.
But the cement street between her steps and her house
was always white hot beige
and the wind blew through her
the eucalyptus and bamboo leaves
- they always fluttered similarly.



(c) April 12, 2020