Ordinary Hazards: List 1

Toughness is what I was after,
although I couldn’t have
articulated as much.

I peer into the past,
pretending bravado,
but still I shiver,
as the ghosts of yesterday
come screaming into the present
without apology,
dragging more baggage
than I recall.

Pain can sully your soul,
if you let it,
and rage held in reserve
will turn to sludge,
will obstruct the passageway
to your heart.

I could tell you a thing or two
about Harlem Hospital,
not because I was born there,
but because severe bouts
of asthma made me
an emergency-room regular.

Forget the Wild West
of inner-city streets,
bullets buzzing by
on the occasional Friday night,
propelled by a deadly combo
of alcohol and apathy.

I don’t recall coming
nose-to-nose with any rat,
but there were mornings
I did see
an empty plastic bag
on the kitchen table
where a loaf of bread
used to be,
and the trail of breadcrumbs
across the linoleum,
a broken line
of evidence.

It would be years before
paranoid schizophrenia
grew roots
in the soil of my own
vocabulary.

That’s what they called it
between bouts of laughter,
heads lolling back, eyes the color
of a blood moon.

But it was all delirium, wasn’t it?

Inside, Carol and I were whipped
whenever the foster parents’ progeny
misbehaved and pointed
in our direction.

We rang her bell,
listened for the crackle
of the intercom
Her tinny voice came through.

Troubled thoughts
clung to me like shadow
through the day,
and sleep that night
was fitful.

A modicum of skill

allows me to create as much—

in story.

There is no certainty of sequence,

no seamless transitions,

nothing as neat and orderly as that.

It is the invisible bridge

spanning the abyss,

the single light

that outstrips the dark

every time.

Kendall, not much bigger than me,
headed upstairs, jabbering away
to fill the spaces
my silence left behind.

With Clancy on my heels,
I looked around the house,
an aging, two-story
brown-shingled affair with an attic,
holding its own as the first house
on the corner of a residential street,
its property edging a building
with a faded sign that said Con Edison.

I gritted my way though his silly exams,
stoking his words like kindling,
hoping to God he’d choke
on his inkblots
and “games”
of free association...

Hours passed, and
sleep remained elusive.

Hill Street was a sweet-smelling,
rainbow-tinted place in summer,
thanks to the trellis of
American Beauty roses
that hugged the house...

...a tangle of wild grapevines,
a patch of violets and anemones,
and the saucer-sized
white hydrangeas
and blue hydrangeas
that challenged the bushes
for attention.

GRAPE ESCAPADE

My assignment clear:
pick grapes from the vine for jam.

Maybe it was my father’s
unlucky affection
for games of chance
that made me look askance
at losing.

And did I mention,
his taste was impeccable?

Mr. B. disappeared
behind the sports page,
and Mrs. B. absconded
with the entertainment section.

Sometimes we wake
and the world’s gone white,
streets and driveways
made to disappear
by an alchemy of snow
children know
exactly what to do with.

Winter workers
assigned to snow removal,
Ken, Brad, and I
climbed out a window
prissy Grace had no intentions
of squeezing through.

“Yes, ma’am,” we chimed,
stifling giggles.

...I pumped the brakes
a little too late,
skidded sideways,
and slammed into
the wrought iron fence
protecting the park
from dangers like me.

Kendall said
careening into
that fence
was the perk
that came along
with the adventure.