The Girl on Stilts

You lived
In the corner house
And your name
Was Carol

You gave me
My first kiss
Behind the forsythia bush
When we were six

A kid’s kiss
But still - a real kiss
Right on the lips

There may have been
A second one
But I don’t remember
Because the other kids
Found us and you ran
From our hidden Eden
Crying

And when you told your father
What had happened
He said we could never play
Together again -
Seemingly harsh punishment
For a promiscuous child's crime

But you served your time -
A week of confinement
to your backyard -
Parading clumsily around
on the stilts he made you -
Probably hoping they would purge
your mind of foolish temptations
and accelerate your rehabilitation

But they didn't -
And a month later
You got caught
Kissing another boy

Where Silence Falls on Silence

I gave you
my face

but I was
somewhere
else -

A place
Deep
in memory

Where silence
Falls
on silence

Like snow
On top
Of snow

The Shoe Story

You were surprised
i remembered
the story you told
about the time
your mother
lost her shoe
when she
and her sister
ran into
the rice fields
and hid
under blankets
to escape
the bombs
dropped
on their
Japanese village
one night
during WWII

It is not
something
one
easily
forgets
waiting
for the
8 AM
Monday
morning
section
meeting
to start

Ever Fresh Farms (Farmingdale)

Rememberance - In no chronological order

I am looking at the only photograph
I have of my grandmother and grandfather
taken during the 1920s or early '30s

They are both young
My grandfather is wearing a three piece suit and a straw hat
My grandmother a pair of delicate leather boots
and a coat with a fur collar

They are standing somewhere in Brooklyn
It might have been a special occassion
or Sunday or maybe they just dressed that way

I never met my grandfather
He died in the late 1930s
My grandmother lived into her eighties
but my memories of her,
at this point in my life
are nothing more than small eclectic sketches

II

She lived through the Depression
And for the rest of her life
She saved and reused
Scraps of aluminum foil
Paper bags, rubber bands
Rags, and even the string
From the bakery boxes
Long before recycling
came into fashion

She used torn pieces
of brown bag paper
Instead of band aides
To stop the bleeding
If she accidentally
Cut herself
while pealing potatoes
or dicing onions

She used naphtha soap
And ammonia and bleach
And plenty of hot water
And elbow grease
When she cleaned

She had her own way
of doing things -
Like sharpening pencils
With a razor blade
Instead of a pencil sharpener
And I could never use them
Because the points always broke off
As soon as they touched the paper

She had a big glass jar full of buttons
That we used instead of money
When we played a card game
Called Steal the Old Man’s Pack
And a dice game called Put and Take

She used the term “dear”
Whenever she thought
Something was too expensive
Which was just about all the time

She taught me how make
Ravioli from scratch
Rolling out the dough
Cutting the shapes
With the rim of a glass
Filling them
With ricotta cheese
Tightly crimping the edges
Putting them int0
the boilng water of the "big pot"
Watching them sink to the bottom
and parachuting to the top when they were done

She put supper
On the table every night
For us after my mother died
And by then she was in her late sixties

She sang quietly
To herself
At the kitchen sink
While she washed
The supper dishes -
But stopped if she caught
Anyone listening

She watched wrestling
And loved Andre the Giant
And Gorgorius George
And never knew that what
They did in the ring wasn't real

She married twice -
Her first husband died
And she divorced the second one
Because he was too stingy with
His money

She went to mass
Almost every Sunday
And to Bingo
Once or twice during the week
And when she won
She always gave money
To all her grand children

She worked in the garment district
And sat at the kitchen table
Every Sunday night
and counted out
The piece-work tickets
form the previous week,
Wrapping a thick rubber band
Around each neat little stack

She lived into her eighties
and I thought she'd be around forever

She used to call me Joey
and then one day
time rewired all her memories
and the Joey that she knew
wasn't me

Chippy

My aunt Chippy
Whose real name was Lillian
Wore her hair short
Like a tomboy
And had been in love
With the Brooklyn Dodgers
Throughout the 1950's
And when they left
The East Coast for California
It broke her heart
And she purged them from her life forever
By giving me all the Dodger memorabilia
She had spent a decade collecting

There were newspaper articles
About Sandy Amaros
The Cuban left fielder
And a photograph of him
Flashing the leather at the last moment
Stealing a sure double from Yogi Berra
Making his famous sliding catch
Down the left field line
In game seven of the '55 World Series

And although she hated the Yankees
There was an article and photograph
Of Mickey Mantle’s mammoth
565 foot home run
That cleared the Griffith Stadium roof
And became the first tape measure home run

Chippy also liked telling stories
About the stick ball games
She played In Catholic School -
The girls against the nuns
Or, as she called them – the Sisters

And when she finally decided
To spend a weekend with us
At our Long Island house
I bragged to all my friends
That she was greatest stick ball player
To ever have played in Brooklyn
Throwing in that she was capable of delivering
Home runs on the scale of Ruth and Mangle
Because none of them really knew
Where Brooklyn was
Or had ever played stick ball
but they all knew Mantle and Ruth

The moment she arrived
I dragged her out to the street
And handed her the stick ball bat
I had made from my mother's broom
And proudly pulled out a Spaldeen
And tossed it to her

She laughed and said
She hadn’t played in years
And couldn't promise anything

She whiffed the first five times
She tossed the ball in the air
And tried to hit it

And I could see
the look of doubt
Creeping into my friends' faces
and all I could say was -
“She’s rusty, that’s all.”

But then on the sixth try
She connected
And sent the bubble gum colored
ball in a high, far arc
Out of the cul-de-sac
And down the length of the block
With everyone scrambling
To retrieve it

Turning to me
She smiled
And said – "Not bad, kid.
Now you try."

One Long and One Short

My mother never learned how to drive
And If she needed to go anywhere
During the day she always called a cab

And within 10 or 15 minutes
A yellow cab would arrive at our house
Ready to take us on our excursion

Pulling out of our cul-de-sac
The cabbie would call into the dispatcher
And say – “I just picked up one short and one long.
What is the fare?”

And a few moments later,
The dispatcher's voice would come back
through the crackle of the two way radio
And ask – "What is the destination."

-"Local...just into town."

“That'll be a buck twenty five.”
And off we would go.

I always imagined that the dispatcher
was like someone from mission control
who controlled all of the cabbies and their taxis
from some remote and secret place

But once, when we were in town,
and my mother didn't have change
to call a cab from the pay phone at the supermarket
And we had to walk to the taxi dispatch building
I got to see the building

It turned out to be nothing more than a small shack
Attached to the Aero Tavern -a haven for afternoon bar flies

And the dispatcher -a chain smoking,
grossly overweight woman with graying
Medusa-like hair and huge arms
with undersides that hung down
and jiggled like curdled sacks of fat
whenever she reached for her cigarette

Eyeing us peripherally,
she grabbed the dispatch microphone
and said in a gravely voice:
"I have two walk-ins for pickup. Someone come and get 'em."
And then exhaled a thick cloud of smoke
that exploded against the nicotine stained plate glass window

As we sat and waited for the cab
I thought of the few occasions
When my father tried to teach
My mother how to drive
Our big, yellow Buick convertible,
with the manual transmission,

The lessons started with promise
But always ended badly

My mother couldn't operate the clutch
And put the car through a series of seizures
Which made her laugh
And my father rapidly lose his patients -
Until he couldn't take the lurching anymore
And finally blurted out - "That's enough. I'll drive."
And they would switch places.

As a result, she never learned to drive.
And in the end,
probably decided that it was easier
To simply call a cab -
And so we remained -"One long and one short"

Marion

The forsythia
With their willowy
branches
of flaming
yellow flowers
Flailing about
In the cool
Spring breeze
Always remind me
Of my Aunt Marion

Who came
Out to the Island
- or the country
as she called it -
From Brooklyn
Every Spring
Just to walk through
the neighborhood
To enjoy them

II

Marion
had a boyfriend
Named Nick

And during the summer
She and Nick
And my cousins
Joe and Barbara
And my Aunt Chippy
Would all pile into
Nick’s black Chevy Impala
with the bullet fins
and big chrome fenders
And drive out to our house
On the Island
Either alone
or as the lead car
in a caravan
of cars
containing
my other
aunts, uncles
and cousins

And no matter
how many times
They made the trip
From Brooklyn
Out to the Island
They always missed Exit 31
And got lost
And had to call from a pay phone
For directions

And when the big, black Chevy
Pulled up in front of our house
It was the signal to breakout
The cold cuts, soda, beer,
Macaroni salad, potato salad,
Hot dogs – and have lunch

And everyone
sat around the
Big kitchen table eating
And “catching up”
And smoking...

Everyone smoked -
Mostly Pall Mall, Camel,
Lucky Strike or Chesterfield
Except my father
Who smoke Raleigh Cigarettes
Because they came with coupons
That were redeemable
For gifts in a catalog
That he let me help him
Pick out
Whenever he had
Accumulated enough
To send away
For something

And as they ate
Someone would start
To tell a story
about what silly thing
one of them said
or done the previous week

And then
someone else would
Jump in an add to it

And slowly
the story would build
In bits and pieces
until it ended
In a eruption of laughter
As they poked fun
At one another


On Saturday nights
Everyone crowded
around the TV
into the living room
to watch Sea Hunt
starring Lloyd Bridges

And as it got later and later
Someone would eventually yawn
and say -
“Well, we’d better be going soon.
It’s a long drive.”

To which my mother to say:
“No, it’s too late to leave now.
You’ll Never find the Parkway in the dark.
Stay over and leave in the morning.”

And then someone would call out-
“OK, but put on another pot.” (of coffee)
Or, “Put on the tea kettle.”
Or,“None for me. I’m turning in.”

And some would stay up -
And some would go to bed -
And as the night dwindled
The last two left at the table
Were always my mother
And Marion -
The two closest sisters

And decades later
Time has stitched
Those moments together
In my mind
like a Crazy Quilt
Made up of many small pieces
That add up
to tell a larger story
That could never be completely unfolded

Blow Fish

When Ginny, the youngest sister,
married Joe Lauro
I was the ring boy at their wedding
Or would have been
Had I not gotten sick
In the back of the Checker Cab
On the way to the church

Joe like to hunt
And had converted a closet
In their Brooklyn apartment
Into an arsenal

He showed it to me once.
It was floor to ceiling guns
And shelves of ammunition.

Later on, he gave it all up
In favor of bow hunting
Saying it required more skill

But before he did
He gave me the first and only gun
I ever owned -
A 22 caliber single shot Remington rifle
Which I used to shoot on Sundays
At an underground rifle range
Out on eastern end of the Island

Joe Lauro took me fishing once
In one of the Long Island bays
I think I was about twelve or thirteen
I had never been fishing before

I caught crazy stuff –
A sea robin, a blow fish and an eel
They scared the hell out of me
When I pulled them out of the water

But my Uncle knew how to handle them -
He cut up the sea robin
And eel for bait
But put the blow fish
In a bucket of water

Later that afternoon,
When we got back to the house,
He cut up the blow fish
And cooked it on the barbecue
Casually mentioning
That parts of them were poisonous
And if not cleaned properly
They could kill a man -

And then he laughed,
And said, “But so can Ginny’s” cooking.

Little Mr. Butterball

Margaret
One of the middle sisters
on my mother's side
Liked to laugh
And it didn’t take much
To get her going

And for some reason
My younger brother
Who she called
Little Mr. Butterball
Made her laugh the most

Especially, when he did his silly
Little vaudeville act
Which was nothing more
Than a spontaneous
Wiggly dance
and s series of funny faces -

When my Aunt was in her early twenties
She had baby boy
But put it up for adoption

Twenty years later
Her son found her
And wrote
Asking if he could meet her

They met and things
seemed to be going well
But then he blew his brains out in the woods
Somewhere in New Jersey

But in spite of the tragedy
She pulled through
Mostly Because
She she liked to laugh

Especially, at the antics
Of my brother
Little Mr. Butterball

Aunt Helen

Because I had gotten
Off the bus
To get the math book
I had left in my locker
And didn’t make it back in time
To get back on before it pulled away
My friend Rudy threw the things
I had left on the seat
From the window
as I ran along side

But I missed catching them
And when my loose leaf
Hit the ground and burst open
It Sprayed the school yard
With all of my papers

Evidence the janitor gathered the next day
And presented to my homeroom teacher
Miss Charlstin -
Stating it was clearly an act of mischief
That required some form of punishment
For his having spent the entire morning
Cleaning it up

She agreed
And made me stay after school
To wash the blackboards
And clean the chalk dust
Out of the erasers

Which I did by holding them out the window
And clapping them together -
Letting the wind blew the white wisps of dust away

After serving my punishment
I returned home that day -
The innocent victim -
Ready to repeat my story
to any one who would listen

But when I got home
I found that my bedroom
Had been turned
Into a hospital room
For my Aunt Helen
Whose heart
Was just about worn out
Even though she had recently
been treated by the famous Dr.Bakey

And just that week
She had Insisted
That she was well enough
to go with us to the World’s Fair
In Flushing Meadows
Where she enjoyed a Belgium waffle

But now she was propped up in my bed
Looking ghostly pale -
Attached to an oxygen tank,
Tangled in tubes

When she motioned
For me to come closer
I thought she wanted
Me to recount my story
Of how my integrity
Had been maligned
But She simply reached out
And held my hand

And when I looked at my hand,
Still covered in chalk dust,
It was almost the same
Pale color of hers
And during that moment
I felt my own weakness
And at the same time
Her enduring strength

"Pop"

"Pop” -one of the older brothers
Married Helen Moffo
I never knew
His real name
Because that was what
Everyone always called him

And before he had
The heart attack
That forced him
To go on disability
Pop had worked his entire life
at the Bazooka Bubble Gum factory

Pop liked telling the story
About the time
One of the workers
Slipped and fell
into one of the mixing vats
And was made into bubble gum
Before anyone could
Shut the machine down

I must have heard the story
a hundred times
and each time he told the story
He swore that it was was true

And the single answer he gave
To every question I posed –
Whether it was, “ What happened to the blood?”
Or, “What happened to his clothes?” –
Was – “They all turned into bubble gum.”

And then he would take out a big bag
Of Bazooka Bubble Gum
And ask: “Would you like a piece?”

I Was the Boy with Pigeon Toed Feet

I was the boy
with pigeon toed feet

And everyone laughed
At my funny physique

But I was the fastest
Boy in the class -

Running equally well
In the street or on grass

With long swift strides
I set a fast pace

And all who tried
Went down in disgrace

I was the boy with pigeon toed feet
I was the boy who won every race

The Death of Love

As I sat
By the window

Watching snow
Turn to rain

I knew
When you woke

You’d be hungry
for words

And I knew
I had none

That would
Lessen your pain

Or undo
What had been done

As you slept

All alone