Two Words

he could jump a fence, shoot up walls
back in the Dominican Republic,
a skinny nothing much of a body kid
nobody expected anything from or
here in Bed Stuy where  he
leapt up two steps at a time to the roof
almost ducking the knife that marked his left cheek
I saw in his tell me about yourself  first day
college English essay
 
watched him grab and shop lift for the last time
making a fast get a way, jumped high as he could
to landed  here, staring at the first wall
he couldn’t leap over, each word
a brick, fourteen rows, not a single chink
to get a foothold beginning
“When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes”*
well, he knew about fortune nobody he knew had any
stared at it the way my cat stares at
a tall bookcase  takes a few steps back
then forward gauging the distance needed  to make the leap
“Desiring this man’s art, and that man’s scope”
I could see him pacing his mind, considering
the words from different places 
 “deaf heaven” brought up his mother’s
shawled head bowed in prayer every god damn day
when, I don’t know how, happened so fast
he was up and over that wall : life sucks, he yelled out
holding up a photo of a woman on his cell phone
the couplet he’d  snatched hold of
as  he once grabbed something from an open market
and ran with it: “For they sweet love rememb’red such wealth brings
              That then I scorn to change my state with kings.”

* all quotes are from Shakespeare’s sonnet,
“When, In Disgrace With Fortune And Men’s Eyes”

© Copyright, Linda Lerner.
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