Last Trip
The willow drags its branches
On the roof of the sputtering
Sun-faded Chevrolet like shreds
Of a polish-weary rag
Memento of lost metal pride
The woman yells
A boulevard of loser slurs
And the sweaty driver snaps
The radio volume knob trying
To drown her and his world out
Mud leeches the baby-ass tires
Spitting muck cakes the naked lugs
Like a potter’s hubcap notion
After a spinning quarter mile
The boiling wreck is shot clear
As she finds soothing static
Between stations and apologizes
At the junkyard they bargain up
To fifty bucks and use
Of a filthy restroom short a door
Plus a phone to call
Their favorite watering hole
When no one’s watching
He screws the valve caps off
And proclaims them good
For luck and she kisses each
Headlight after all they bought
It new and not likely another
Walking away hand in hand
Snickering at the promise of a ride
They stop to view the deep ruts
Their late auto’s artistic legacy
Envisioning the half-paved parking lot
The tall, wagging willow
Locks become the soft cloth strips
Hanging in the brushless carwash
Where there eyes first met
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Custody
At a barred window
She watches
Somber gulls
Navigate frozen
Puddles she figures
Liquid, ice or tar
All the same
To their low-life
Scavenger ways
She imagines webbed feet
Stuck and the rest
Bloody winged away
And a gavel spinning
Like a mad compass needle
Stopping every time
To advantage wealth
A lawyer rocks her kid
In a court appointed cradle
She can’t make out
The words on the red banner
Flapping above the two
Art museum pillars
But she spells out
“Audubon” in her head
Approaching cars provide
Provide two fluid paths
And the gulls briefly
Flap wings and rush to dip
Their feet and she reckons
Sky water not sea
Is all the same to them
She smiles thinking
Her eyes would have
Salted at least a lake
And many a gull tail
Past few months—
No more
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Heights Kids at Corinne’s, July 25, 2015
Hard to miss the giant roller-skate upon entering
or the encased regulation pair – homage to the venue’s former life.
Many arriving celebrants felt ball-bearing wheels
purring underfoot – any better place for remembering?
Taping a wood bit disguised as a brick under a chair at each of the nine
round tables for an eventual prize was my job: such piddling labor
against the reunion “masonry” others so admirably performed.
A table of penny candy – Kits, Squirrel Nuts, Bit-O-Honey
and the small brown bags they traveled in, easily captured
the aura of May’s and Gus’s IGA,
Farley’s, Barney’s and Donna’s Market.
A scrapbook of brittle Pawtucket Times clippings
about our Prospect Heights was on hand
flanked by collages of family photos in black and white.
DJ Brown provided music that was apropos.
A couple danced gracefully after sharing a story
of a mother’s waltzing demand.
Other tales followed; one recalling clothesline mischief had all howling.
The genial emcee held a quiz and among the twenty: what three streets bordered
our Project? Number of blocks and apartments? How many drenching brass
heads powered the summer shower at the Heights playground?
Framed copies of the Heights print we all recalled
hanging on the Admin Office wall highlighted the raffle.
The nine centerpieces were exotic and dazzling.
The four o’clock plants that used to thrive in yards were a comfort.
Folks wandered from table to table comparing, contrasting,
occasionally correcting and perhaps embellishing the past a tad.
Emotions mimicked a Berry Springs / Cott Hill descent and climb.
How many tough and wild ones named aloud or in whispers,
along with the missing, dead and suffering?
The buffet was a hit! And what a cake, emblazoned
with an image of the iconic Prospect Street School.
The puzzling nickel at each place setting was solved
when the Model-A Peter Palagi ice cream truck mysteriously appeared
outside as if a coach that would turn into an orange midnight creamsicle.
At the modern vehicle, the five-cent pieces spent as well as they once did.
Many posed at the vintage steering wheel for photos
to document a wish fulfilled after decades of waiting.
Our collective thoughts re-roofed blocks in gravel and tar,
smashed gates down, ripped away fences.
Abracadabra landscaping returned oaks and willow trees
to the Office Grass, scattered hawthorns in random yards.
Reunion glazed memories united us as firmly
as the mortar binding those enduring bricks
that in some dreams might have been mouths
agape at our praise and rejoicing
their kiln and craftsmen origins too.
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