LIGHTEN UP,
BUT WATCH YOUR HEAD

Today I feel as vulnerable as a peanut butter

and jelly sandwich in a fold-over—not Ziploc—

bag inside a paper bag scrawled with my initials

smeared across Eight Mile Road, dropped by a boy

in a hurry, stoned for high school—the better

to sleep through, my dear—and he’s laughing at that

so hard his eyes are tearing—he’s already late

but that’s okay—and the sandwich? That’s okay too.

No books? A joke of epic proportions. So,

why’s he even going?  You should have asked him

before he got stoned. Walk/Don’t Walk. Hilarious.

Today 55 years old, in for all the tests,

I check all the boxes. Having fasted since

midnight, as instructed. They can see a lot

of things these days they couldn’t see

back then. But they can’t see that boy.

WRITING HIM OFF

He pinched a firecracker

between fingers like a cigarette or joint,

like a tiny mug shot of his evil twin,

and lit it.

               He’s spent the rest of his life

trying to recreate those two seconds

before it exploded.

                               When his mother died,

we found him, cleaned him up for the funeral.

Gave him a few bucks, dumped him back on the street.

Last time I saw him—January, fat snowflakes dive-

bombing children waiting for the school bus—

he was shuffling the clichéd paper bag

down Lincoln Ave.

                                I slowed and honked,

I waved, keeping pace. I shouted Rob!

Hey Robbie! He didn’t look up.

                                                   Perhaps it wasn’t

him—a face half-torn from memory, glued askew.

I drove away.

                        The firecracker trick explodes into

memory’s broken glass. His fingers intact. If only

he would’ve lost one. The rest of us—kids in a leaky rowboat

on a trashy lake, the Fourth, our parents’ beery laughter

echoing over water—

                                    could only light matches

and drop them into the lake’s brown sizzle.

The next year, his father’s blue streak rose like smoke

as he clutched and fell,

                                      dead at forty-seven.

The flakes, dizzying. One child held his arms out

to take in the swirl.

                             They appeared to be rising not falling,

a snowstorm without accumulation

                                                         or consequence.

Like our fathers, we drank together.  He had a prodigious

appetite, and memory for slight. Every night the fuse,

the measuring. The police could supply fingerprints.

On paper, it’s all a living obit.

                                                 Guess what?

He was a good dancer. His drunken feet heavy

with grace like miming a marionette.  His ex-wife

loved him then.

                         The explosion magnified like the laughter.

A zebra firecracker, not a skinny ladyfinger. 

Dwarfed by the sanctioned thunder across the lake sponsored

by Tea Lake, Lewiston, Michigan.

                                                        But who remembers one year

of fireworks over another? I could tell you I’m his brother,

but he was his own evil twin.

                                                Or, he’d inhabited its skin.

I recognized his drunken stumble—no two snowflakes—

if you look close enough.  I’ve only lied a few times till now.

 I drive slower in spring,  hoping for evidence he survived

another winter. Everything hesitancy—

                                                               yellow lights—go. 

Or stop. I saw him and shouted, but I did not stop.

                               Maybe you’ve got a better idea.

His name is Rob.

                            His friends called him Robbie.

Good luck.

PAYING FOR IT

I called my old boss: Where’s my last check?

I heard him chomp his cigar. Next day,

Tammi in payroll called, in tears—

she’d forged my scrawl to pay for an abortion.

What about the dude? I asked.

I’d worked in the basement stockroom

stuffing cardboard into the skull-

crushing bailer, tying it in neat bundles.

We’d shared Oreos and Pringles

in the lunch room. I’d almost asked her out.

The boss was my uncle. Isn’t there something

you can do? she asked.

Boyfriend was a stretch that snapped quick—

a college-boy Christmas-break thing.

One denial leads to two confessions.

Don’t you have somebody to kick his ass?

My uncle would never hire her back,

give her a reference, send her a last check.

I’d once paid half for an abortion—

the woman called from the clinic. I chased

her down to offer mild protestations, then my cash.

Married but separated—her husband banged

on the door the only night I slept with her.

Thunderstorm, but we heard him rage.

My new job was in sales. The boss was not

my uncle. Sympathy, like coffee on the counter,

gets wiped up, but the stain remains.

She had a friend at the bank. Three good lies

make a trail of loose knots. A kite string

guaranteed to pull everyone down.

I wish I had a friend at the bank, I tried to joke.

She started sobbing. At home with her parents,

in her old room. In my studio apartment,

on my third beer, I was frying eggs for dinner.

I didn’t know how to hang up.

If you want someone to cover for you,

I said, you gotta tell ‘em.  I was toasting

stale bread. My uncle chewed his cigars,

no smoke. Some deal he made with himself.

I’d heard him shake his head, how’d she think

she’d get away with it? He’d pay me,

and she or her parents—he didn’t care—

would pay him. When I got that last check,

I cashed it quick before I got somebody else

pregnant or fired.

I said, finally, my eggs are burning

and hung up. Have I got a deal

for you, I said to myself. I ate my eggs.

I mopped things up with my toast.

I cleaned my plate, and I cleaned it again.