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Selected poetry... BEST BOY He lurches toward me on the train platform Head tilted forward and a little to the right Like a jack-in-the-box puppet after it’s popped up. Half-formed words escape from his mouth Several decibels above normal Small shouts of joy? Or something else?
The hands give him away. Clenched like a baby’s, fingers Curled inward, except for one, I want to Grasp that one, and smooth his palm, calmly As his mother must have once, hoping back then That he had to have a chance.
He stops exactly one foot away from me, suddenly As if he has bumped into a wall, and perhaps he has. Clutching his brown paper lunch sack Going to work somewhere for the day. I think he will be a bagger in the grocery store where I shop. His fierce little shouts and open face will make some people smile.
Did his mother know right away, or did she deny What was in the back of her mind, in the back Of every mother’s mind. Her best boy. His eyes keep looking, looking for something, but what? What keeps him from stepping in front of the train?
HOW I WANT How I want to walk down any city street holding hands and kissing every two feet with pigeons landing on our shoulders.
And if we should spy, between kisses, a charming little cafe with outdoor tables owned by a smiling man named Guiseppe why, then, we will enter such a place, as people do and order up a bathtub filled with tart red wine, fold our clothes neatly on the chairs and jump in, asking for two straws and a bouquet of roses with all the thorns removed.
After we have drunk all the wine and licked each other electric as cats we will scatter the rose petals nakedly in the wind. Making promises and spinning stories that re-invent our pasts and lay a yellow brick road to the future.
At some point, we put our clothes back on, but backward and inside-out as if to remind ourselves. Guiseppe brings us a cake made by his Sicilian mother one bite of which makes us start kissing again.
SIXTEEN I was sixteen, working late At Hested’s department store Pressing clothes on their hangers With hot mist from an ancient machine. You had to be careful not to burn yourself.
The boss asked if I wanted to get a bite to eat, And then he’d drive me home. He was our neighbor, my mom said She guessed it would be okay.
Back then I was wildly pursued by boys. But the boss was thirty-five, an old man Out of my league, but I didn’t know it until
I was sitting in a bar, What I thought was a restaurant Since I didn’t know the inside of a bar. He ordered a steak for himself, a hamburger for me.
I had on a blue polyester dress and nylons I’d just gotten my paycheck. The waitress, dressed in a bikini with fringe, Even though it was snowing outside, Slammed the food onto the table, and gave the boss A look, then looked at me and shook her head sadly.
He let me sip his whiskey sour, and ordered two more. On the wall across from me. Heavy red drapes parted behind me, I didn’t turn around, but suddenly I knew.
She had a blonde ponytail and long red tassels. I sat waiting for it to end, my own face Red as the twirling tassels and the nipples that held them. Blood of my hamburger, and cherry floating in sticky sweetness.
The boss smiled at me and licked a crumb from his lips. My mother had never told me any of this would happen. On the way home, we slid across icy streets, As his big Pontiac lurched toward our neighborhood.
The tires skidded and the car stopped. Silent snow. We weren’t there yet. He lunged quickly and his mouth tasted like smoke and meat. He pushed up hard against me, and I started to cry.
He said, "Don’t cry, baby. It won’t hurt." I put his hands away from me, Turned to the window, opened it all the way, And let the snow fall on my face and tongue and hair.
THE WEIGHT OF THINGS "I don’t want to be a burden," Says the old woman with hair The color of milk. Her larynx bobs like A baby bird’s Drawing nourishment from the air To float tremulous voice That once sang soprano in the choir.
I know her - The one thing that tells you Who she was Are her eyes, clear blue As the mountain lake she swam across as a girl And it’s someone else’s hands that are trembling.
When I consider burdens, it’s not this A burden would be empty hands With no sweater to button straight. Or not hearing that still sweet warble Crooning to the birds at the feeder When she thinks no one is listening. |
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