Month: July 2017

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South Omaha

Traffic slows at 24th & Q
where the Latino boys
flirt with simple white girls
but never take them home

We slide in on platform shoes
skirts waving
perspiration slicking our thighs
cement so hot you taste it

 

The Stockyard breeze muscles in
all rolled up sleeves
on the backs of ten million cattle

some break free, leap fences
charge down shotgun streets
moon eyed and heavy faces

Polish housewives and thick necked
husbands shout hey, hey
and whistle from their doorways

cowboys cut rope, drag them back
the wildest ones shot dead
the others lined up waiting

But, we are sixteen
the earth shimmies as we walk
some break free, some bleed out

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Unintentional Grace

The hospital plays the first measures of Brahms lullaby
every time a baby is born

I breath the melody
cradling the halls
the powder, the milk breath, the promise

I pull my chair near to you
daughter to father
your body lies fragile,
teasing the monsters under the bed

It’s late
you talk of our time in Newfoundland
the Newfies
their toughness, their resilience
their thickness,
shoulders pushing into twelve foot waves
rowing deep into the bay’s cold belly

The Newfs, the children
running barefoot into Stephenville,
soles calloused
heels honed true on dirt roads,
and paths, and floors
all day, all night
all spring, all summer,
until early winter curled their breath

You ask me to straighten your socks
a request so simple, so small

I crack my knuckles for this solo concerto
study the seam cresting each toe
until you smile
and I spin the next hour
throwing shadow puppets against the wall
trying to catch your light with my fingers

Your heart quivers,
the room becomes an auditorium
the curtain yanked on its metal track
nurses rush to their instruments
tuning C sharps and B flats
playing your IVs like a symphony of strings

It’s quite again
I put my foot to your foot
they are so much the same
and it hurts
the allusion of tomorrow,
of next time,
of soon

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Body Diving

I used to race skateboards down Hanover
one hundred and fifty miles an hour
crash and burn, shred my toes
tape them up and do it again

I used to spin out on dirt bikes
drag my chin through gravel
argue with gravity, centrifugal force
anything that hurt

more than his hand down my pants
nasty breath in my ear
club of a prick
breaking my triangle of wonder
my grommet of fortitude

family is family, man
but not this man
that left me speaking in euphemisms
scared to look down
but knowing that was the only way
to land on my feet and run

look ma, no hands
steering with my knees on Gibraltar Road
spitting chew, jamming throttle
puking Mad Dog 2020 after each pin curve
until the sticky taste of semen
washed clean

at his funeral I saw his mother
she said I was the bravest person
she had ever known