Nervous

I was always a nervous 

little boy, negotiating 

playground perils,

the bigger, louder 

boys, girls, figuring 

when and how to kiss

Patty under the wild 

cherry tree. (The why 

remained an enigma.)

My apprehension 

loomed from more

malevolent origins: 

a dark violence,

a cruel neglect, 

too many horrific events,

a long list efficiently 

repressed. (But we won’t 

get into that, will we?)

My symptoms manifested: 

my belly, a perpetually 

clenched little fist;

my frequent and 

spontaneous bloody

nose on the school bus; 

my peculiar and relentless 

obsessions and compulsions.

Now gray, nearly sixty, 

that small, anxious child 

huddles, cringes, 

desperate for a quiet, 

unobtrusive corner.

The Dead Man

When she was still young,

When we were yet a family,

My mother found a dead man,

A very dead dead man,

On her way home from work,

Drudgery at the carry-out.

Old Mr. what’s-his-name

Had been raking leaves

In his yard, that tiny red

Bungalow on Martinsburg Road.

I could guess at her usual

Oscillation between shock, curiosity,

And annoyance over the bother.

Did she poke at him a bit, feel

For his pulse before seeking help?

(Years later, a girl I danced with

In the Pleasant Street Junior High

Cafeteria made her first home

With her new husband there.

I imagined the dead man still

Breathing, raking, poking about.)

In the kitchen, after supper,

Mom and Dad whispered

And joked over her adventure.

I thought, as there was no one

But my mother to find him,

Shouldn’t we be a little sad, a little 

Thoughtful over the dead man,

Old Mr. what’s-his-name?

How was it when, her turn,

Someone found my mother dead, 

Alone in her bed long after her 

Mania and violence split us apart?

Did they whisper and joke about

My mother at their kitchen table?