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LIBRARY
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This is to certify that the

thesis entitled

DINOSAURS

presented by

MARCUS CAFAGNA

has been accepted towards fulfillment
of the requirements for

“HA—degree in W

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Major professor

Date 55/(«/ %

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DINOSAURS

By

Marcus Cafagna

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements

for the degree of

Master of Arts

Department of English

1989

,.—......m.......

—"-‘ .‘g'i' 3-.

ABSTRACT

DINOSAURS

' BY

Marcus Cafagna

This manuscript is my autobiography. I've

used anecdote, image and metaphor to dramatically

narrate my life through poetry. Dinosaurs comprises

the skeleton of my childhood and the traumatic

events that caused the separation and divorce of

my mother and father. The poems in this manuscript

are arranged in a reverse chronology, moving

backwards in time. I begin by narrating my present

the days in the rooming houses,
adolescence, and gradually travel back to my origin.

life, my marriage,

 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

These poems have appeared in the following publications:

"The Other World" in Negative Capability; "The Rooming House",

 

”careful", "It's no good”, and "Persephone's leaving" in

Long Shot; "Three bullets", "The Missing Card", and "Johnny"

 

in The MacGuffin; "My uncle" in Pig in a Poke; "It can

 

 

disappear at any moment", "Up at Jeanie's", "No passage",
and "The Mess" in 5 A.M.; "Franks and beans" in the

elephant-ear; "Little dogs" in Slipstream; "Dinosaurs" in

 

 

The Red Cedar Review; "Slipping Through Fire" and "The Rest

 

Home" in The Burning World; "White frosting" in The

 

Bellingham Review; "Moon Lake" and "In your trailer" in

 

Blue Light Review.

 

iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

The Rooming House .................................. 1
No hot plates in the rooms ......................... 2
It can disappear at any moment ..................... 4
Three bullets ...................................... 6
Moon Lake .......................................... 8
Nothing like that .................................. 10
White frosting ..................................... 12
It's no good ....................................... 13
Cousin Saul ........................................ 15
Mammography ........................................ 17
Mama's boy ......................................... 19
Wayne .............................................. 21
The Silence ....................... . ................ 23
Persephone's leaving ............................... 25
In your trailer ................................ .... 27
Debbie ............................................. 28
Dybbuks ............................................ 30
You love her ....................................... 31
Miller was wrong ................................... 33
When you bend over ................................. 35
Miracle ............................................ 36
Johnny ............................................. 37
The Rest Home ............................... . ...... 39
The Mess ........................................... 41
All of this ................................... .. .. 43
This minute ........................................ 45
Little dogs ........................................ 46
My uncle ........................... . ............... 48

iv

Nice pants ......................... . ............ 49

careful ..... ................. .. ................. 52
The Missing Card ...................... . ......... 53
No passage ...................................... 54
Up at Jeanie's .................... . ............. 55
Slipping Through Fire ........................... 57
After the divorce ............................... 60
bedbugs ......................................... 61
The Catch ....................................... 63
Franks and beans ................................ 64
Dinosaurs ..... .................................. 67
The Other World ................................. 69

 

 

The Rooming House

It's the headlights hard in the window.
The bass rumbling through the floorboards.
The crack of spark plugs like guns in the dark.

It's the roaches and two bathrooms for 16 people.
The paint chips floating from the ceiling
like snow.

Teenagers screwing in the heat.

It's the new one with the little pony tail
stripping his walls of paneling

to reveal holes gaping like jaws underneath.

It's the white steps of the fire escape.
The beer I drink, the cigarettes I smoke

while the neighborhood decays.

No hot plates in the rooms

In Denver

the streets were hot

and made of tar

and the only cheap rooms

were up above the strip—show theatres.
And when this fat bald man in baggy pants
swung the door open,

I followed the blue smoke

of his cigar up dying steps.

His big ring of keys rattling

as he cranked open #7.

"18 bucks," the man said to me,

"First week in advance."

The room was a walk-in closet

with a faded red stain

on the linoleum floor.

The walls were brown

and without windows, just a skylight
in the ceiling

like a large refrigerator box.

"Smells like blood in here,"

I said.

"All my rooms are the same,"

he said.

(cont. on next page)

(new stanza)

Suddenly there was a loud hammering
from above

shaking the walls

like waterpipes about to burst.

The the swooshing sound

of water. Then

nothing.

I laid my guitar and my
suitcase

on the stained yellow
mattress

and peeled off the bills.

"No girls," he said, "No hot plates

in the rooms."

It can disappear at any moment

Those days spent in the rooming houses
smoking dope
with the door bolted
and the TV blinking,
were days I didn't care
about anyone or anything...
If no one knocked

‘it was a good day.

My friends hardly friends at all
but people rotting. Some

with their teeth rotting
Medieval haircuts rotting
shoulders slumped in defeat--
people who cared for nothing. Who
cared for the smoking of dope
and only for that.

Crouching on furnished chairs
for six hours in my room

like amputees

until I went mad holding
eyeball, lung, heart

less and less

through the afternoon.

(cont. on next page)

(new stanza)

And finally the sheer waste of it
tore at me.
Even the hallway stinking of it.
That and the must of rotten carpet
and pine and pipes
rusting in the bathroom.
Nothing alive in there
except a lone brown spider
hanging in a web above the toilet
who I thought was dead, too.
Until one night, bored with the standing
and watching, '
I exhaled a shot of smoke up
and his web shock with it
and he flexed a couple
of bent spindles at me.
That.spider,

he was alive alright.

Three bullets

There's a glow

in Peter's trailer tonight.
It's color TV

and I try to write by it

while he pokes smokes

into his red beard,

while his blue—eyed blonde
5—year—old boy

and two 8—year—old war buddies
chase each other crashing
through the narrow

living room.

Six feet shoving energy

back to front

front to back.

Trailer wobbling under the load.
Little voices ricocheting

to a world

I do not understand.

(cont. on next page)

(new stanza)

Peter doesn't understand it
either.

Listless as a cornstalk,

his Indiana features

whittled down

by the clicking of plastic machine guns,
his boy and the two commandos
he cannot

halt.

They are short and arrogant
and very pale.

Sitting here I think

of a .38

and three bullets.

Moon Lake

It's afternoon

when Peter phones me

from Moon Lake.

There's trouble in the trailer
next door.

Ferocious yelling and banging.
Cheryl chasing Duane

into the yard

with a two—foot rolling pin.

In a voice fractured

by cigarettes

Peter tells me

they were engaged-—

Duane with 10 years in

at the Olds.

Cheryl already six months
along

barely squeezing in under
the steering wheel

of the Thunderbird her folks
bought for the wedding.

(cont. on next page)

(new stanza)

But Peter says

he's staying out of it.
The door's locked

and he's cross—dressing.
The mirror in the bathroom
reflecting

the lie.

His five—year-old son
unaware and snoozing

on a carpet

stained

with piss.

Nothing like that

In the bedroom wearing only a knit shirt
and my Seiko,

I type poems and suck Cokes.

The Dumb Waiter by pinter's on, I yell

to the living room.

She opts for Chuck Norris

"Missing In Action" while hemming

the new pants

she bought me. Against the refracted light
of the Mitsubishi

she's as sexy as Marilyn

in her black leotard

and silk kimona.

Next to her on the footstool,
the telephone doesn't ring.
It did this afternoon.

We were close to it.

A sex fight.

Almost. She

almost moved her furniture
out. She

almost took the diamond ring
off. I

almost went back

to the cigarettes and beer. But
she didn't. And

I didn't.

(cont. on next page)

(new stanza)

Now automatic gunfire

chugs in the living room

and I can hear

gold bracelets click

as she draws needle and thread
through twill,

through colored light.

Now it's o.k.

No casualties. Nothing

like that.

11

White frosting

my wife
eats wedding cake
at midnight.
dances out the screen door
wearing only a t—shirt.
doesn't mind the windows
dark
in other apartments.
such ass
ripe as cantaloup
on our balcony.
white frosting

she throws

to the ants.

12

13

It's no good

It's just that a man

goes crazy

left to himself too much.
He doesn't know

what to do.

He doesn't know what to do
with his hands.

He wants those breasts

in the cups of his hands.
He wants the fit of those thighs
those lips, that tongue

on his lips

his tongue.

He's scared.

He listens to the silence
of a house

he does not own.

He thinks

he paces

he remembers too much.

He thinks

maybe the days will go on
and on and engulf him.

He wonders

will he be able

to stop other women

from dragging him into
the dirt

of their love.

(cont. on next page)

(new stanza)

It gets so that

every car crunching ice in the street
reminds him,

every horn echoing

against his dark brain

makes him lurch

to the window.

 

Cousin Saul

The skin divers found you
in that green Plymouth

at the bottom of a lake

in Bloomington, Indiana——
your body swelling with gas

and decomposing.

You were always

such a quiet kid
mole-faced

skinny

hair of sand

and salt

walking alone

late at night

on the Santa Monica beach.
A teenager without

a girlfriend
a job
a

place.

Your mother drew crazy pictures

for Hallmark

and never understood

your restless need for motion

like your father
always on the road
on the hustle

on the way.

(cont. on next page)

16

(new stanza)

But we missed you those
last four months.

Most of the family saying
it was suicide

or dope or

the Moonies.

None of them say

anything now.

And maybe it's best like this——
no estranged lover

no note

none of us ever really knowing
if this is what

you wanted.

 

” l

Mammography

 

That morning

in the waiting room

I hunched over teakwood,

heart drumming against a revelry

of purple carpeting

and game shows,

the clicking, rattling, ringing

of ordinary things,

the useless eyes of other patients ‘ '

and their families.

Then a nurse of 50

whisked in calling my name,

said your name

and I stood up afraid

and I followed the shoes of that woman
through a clean narrow corridor,
through the longest corridor

in the country.

And she cranked open a heavy door

and I saw you.

You sitting alone-—

Kleenex in your fist,
yellow of hair, eyes

that are all the world

to me,

paisely gown replacing your
dress, little white tag

for a bracelet.

(cont. on next page)

18

(new stanza)

I pulled a chair as close

to yours

as two chairs can go

and held you from there

while the nurse popped the TV on
and it crackled with radiation.
And we gazed into it,

into the green—tinted shower

of a green-tinted woman
touching her breasts

with her hands so that

any woman could learn

her cancer.

And so waited

and we watched

like sentries on guard
until

at last

our nurse returned
brushing back the x-rays,
and her smile

was made

of diamonds

and she told us

the one thing

we wanted

to hear.

19

U
Mama S bOY (for my daughter Noelle)

He calls me now almost every day.
Every day

he has the same complaint.

"It's that woman," he tells me
"that woman," in a voice that whines

like tires in the rain.

Usually he's alone

when he calls

but sometimes she's there--

in the kitchen, the next room
just out of earshot.

His voice sounding hard and low

like a man in jail.

"I can't take it," he says

"I can't live like this."
"Where is she now?" I ask.

"Well...she's in the shower

but she doesn't care."

I imagine her standing naked
in his dirty bathtub
squinting under the spray,
hair blonde and twisted

into those tiny pigtails
down the back.

(cont. on next page)

20

(new stanza)

"Stick with it," I tell him

"she's worth it."

"I know," he says, "but I need
love. I need a little
COMPASSION."

He makes me think of the men
I've known who suffered alone
in wars

in hospitals for the insane
in back rooms

swallowing buckshot. Men
who would have killed

to be with a beautiful woman
and 20 again.

They knew what he doesn't.
All too well.

And at least

they were kind enough

not to ask the rest of us
to save them

from it.

 

 

My mother never liked
my favorite cousin.
He smoked and spit tobacco
and was proud
of living in Lincoln, Nebraska.
He hung his Wranglers

on a clothes line
and beat them
with a bat.
I wanted to imitate
everything he did.

He was immune to pimples

and spoke with a nasal cornhusker accent
and swung his arms

like an ape

until I peed my pants.

At the age of thirteen

he had the most incredible collection
of beer cans

I had ever seen. And I couldn't help
following him

like some crazy Italian general,

our sacks clinking

through those dingy back—alleys

of Detroit.

(cont. on next page)

 

(new stanza)

And when we'd finally

trudge home,

the screen slamming behind us,

my mother would gasp at the smell,
at the dirt stains

on my pants.

Then drag me to the bathroom.

Into that crash of running water.

22

23

The Silence

I met you beneath a nicotine canopy.
Your eyes were green

and moved like magnets,

hands from the country

touching gold on your ears,

fidgeting smoke into the sky.

Breast sprayed with curls,
you hiked back the skirt

and showed me

the bruises on your legs.

You cried and said

your father played the violin
sometimes reaching the birds.
In the dark he went

to watch the ponies run.

Exhaling last smoke,

I pressed cracked lips to yours,
rolled the leotard

and held your waist like a clay pot.
Our tongues exchanging secrets.

The locusts gathering strength in the trees.

(cont. on next page)

(new stanza)

We whispered over the phone
while your father sloshed gin on the sofa.
We walked in the orchard

until October drew you back to Florida.

The traffic cleared.

Your eyes swelled through the tinted glass
as the Greyhound wheeled south

into the rain.

The oaks spitting out their teeth.

The wind dancing on my cheeks.

24

 

Persephone's leaving

She only braved

the rooming house

at night,

inner arm fresh with tracks,
narcissus bush flowing

over a dancer's

physique.

In Florida

she had been raped
repeatedly

by her father

and at 15

fucked men

whose names

she could not

remember.

Her personality

became that

of a stripper,

rotating a nylon ass

against a full length mirror.
I would wake up

alone,

hearing the drums,

always in a sweat.

(cont. on next page)

25

(new stanza)

Within six months
she left me

and returned to
Florida,

driving down

into the heat,

into the clammy air

of the tropics.

I let the telephone
cry

a long time

that last day.

The receiver finally
black and wet

and silent

in my hands.

26

 

 

 

In your trailer

You wear sadness

like buttons on a dress,
stories you tell me

in front of the space heater-—
about'mice

and the notice to evict,

the cops again,

the landlord

a human cockroach,

the baby,
the dingy carpet,
the welfare department,

the dirty dirty diapers.

The TV's on

but no one's watching,
telephone

off the hook,

calico cat

missing as the man

you left me for,

parakeet alone
in a
cage

doesn't stand a chance.

27

 

28

Debbie

used to fall

into a dead sleep

in bathrooms

during ear—splitting
parties

where everyone was
smashed

and yelling

over the music.

Later

people complained

and I'd end up shoving
open the bathroom

door

a crack, and

hear the snoring.

By the sheer resistance
of weight

I guessed her body

to be wedged face—down
between the bathtub

and the sink,

that strange shock

of blonde hair

matted

to the damp tile.

(cont. on next page)

 

29

(new stanza)

And craning my neck,
head tilted in

through the small shaft
of light,

I could make out

what appeared to be

a corpse,

the empty blue eyes

I never understood

glazed open.

 

Dybbuks

Sarah's protected by rhinestone glasses.
She plucks her eyebrows

and pencils them brown.

A diabetic who eats chocolate cake,

she teeters half—blind from room to room.
A transparent catheter whipping her legs
like a forked tail.

Her windows are sealed with nails.
Furniture draped with sheets.

Little devils live in the telephone,
in closets,

amid soup cans and soap,

behind doors she always

keeps locked.

Sarah doesn't trust the superintendent.
He floats through her floors

and cuts a square from the linoleum,
fills her vacuum cleaner bags

with dirt

while she turns under blankets.

A bag of nickels tied to her waist.

Her days and nights

die hard.

Like cockroaches in her kitchen.

Leary of the odds, she keeps a steel box
heavy with tokens,

providing her escape

on the subways of New York.

30

 

You love her

In the morning

you shower

shave in the fogged mirror
while she spreads the red

back into her cheeks.

She says she'll go uptown

in the car

pick up shoes, boots, pay bills
have her nails manicured.

After the finding of lipstick, fur coat
you are alone

in her house.

You stare at the pictures

on the walls

and the ones she painted in Key West,
search for clues in drawers——
nothing.

You eat a tangerine

drink the white wine

read a short story she wrote

repress the urge for a cigarette
think about her daughter in Paris

in Rome at 18.

(cont. on next page)

31

32

(new stanza)

You try to visualize the ex—lovers,
the ex—husband

you can't--

only the lion yellow of her hair,
that way she looks

shoulders and hips,

that look

outlined in that dress

in heels

that turns your guts

to water

and

you feel it getting hard
again

and you wonder

if you'll need to masturbate,
decide against it.

It goes soft.

You go downstairs

turn on the TV.

Nothing but soap operas

and exercise videos.

You crack it off

go back upstairs

click in Billie Holiday

turn it up loud so you can feel
that joy, that deep

deep sadness

"I'm all for you Body and Soul."

 

 

 

 

 

 

Miller was wrong

You dragged it home
that night

nearly falling asleep
at the wheel,

walked in

and said Henry

Miller

was wrong

about

not needing

sleep.

When he wrote that,
he didn't even have
to shave,

let alone get into

costume,

drive in,

work 8 to 10 hours

in a jewelry store

to make it.

(cont. on next page)

33

(new stanza)

No,
Miller spent those days
in Paris

drinking cheap burgundy
in the outdoor cafes,
chasing prostitutes

and borrowing

his dollars

off Anais Nin.

34

 

 

36

Miracle

Taking a bath with you
after the love

the agony

after two weeks separation,
is like a miracle.

You up front

me in back

soaping each other

with the green bar

like we used to——

arms and legs

breasts and other places.
You twisting around

to get me,

working it

working it.

Then stretching back
blonde hair against my chest,
the echo of our laughter
on tile,

the water hot

the way you like it.

37

Johnny

I envied you in high school
because I felt anchored

in a two story colonial

with a manicured lawn,

becauSe my parents were teachers
who engineered me into corduroy

and wool.

From my seat on the bus

I'd see you

gunning your Harley-Davidson over the yellow line,
nearly colliding head on with a truck.

Another juiced—up fugitive wrapped around your waist.
Her orange hair zipping behind you

like a flag.

First hour was always a struggle for me
after that,

embarrassed and feeble

in my rigid little row. My body
cramped by the wooden frame,

I jotted down details like a mannequin
until my fingers ached.

Until the bell melted down the room

and I fled to the cafeteria.

(cont. on next page)

 

38

(new stanza)

And there you stood,

dropped out on angel dust,

breathing marijuana

and flirting with the tough girls about jail.
Your oily denim jacket

sawed off around the shoulders

to expose a skull and cross bones.

The squad car flashing in the parking lot

as I waited in the hot lunch line,

my angora sweater

scratching at flesh.

 

39

The Rest Home

Divided

between the hum of the floor polisher
and residents babbling Christmas carols,
I vibrated across the cafeteria,

mopped up urine

and dumped out the trash.

The rest home was contaminated

by the smell of Vicks VapoRub

and the calloused hands of nurses

maneuvering seniors in naugahyde wheelchairs.

I liked Harry best.

He wandered the south wing,
zonked out on Thorazine,

his eyes dilated,

a bedpan tucked under one arm
like a pet.

Harry was calm, lethargic
until the nurses

took their cigarette break.

(cont. on next page)

 

 

 

40
(new stanza)

Then he would bolt

through the emergency exit,

stomping away

in his pajamas and slippers,
the alarm buzzing orderlies

in the nurses' station.

And one of us

would go outside

to get him.

He'd be lying face down,

gasping for breath,

gray hair sopping,

his arm flailing like wings in the snow.
Neither of us would say a word

as I hoisted him to his feet

and propelled him

back inside.

 

41

The Mess

It was a Tuesday afternoon

in December

and I was writing up this $15 gift certificate
for some lady

when Dianne came into the bookstore

and told me

about Philip.

"It's the lung cancer, Marcus.

Your mother called. I'm sorry.

He's not going

to make it. I'm sorry." And her forehead
scringed up in pain

like it does.

And we left the bookstore

and she drove me down

to the hospital

and I took the elevator

up.

When I got to room 822

my step—father looked at me

from his bed

and whispered in his raspy voice,
"Marcus, it's a mess. It's

a mess and I can't

clean it up."

(cont. on next page)

42

(new stanza)

"I know Philip," I said

and I wanted to wrap my arms
around his dying body and hold
him. I wanted to hold back
time itself. I wanted to

stop the years from peeling away, stop
minutes dead on the clock,
stop everything--

instead I squeezed his hand

in mine

and felt my eyes

burn.

"It all happened so fast,"
he said,

"It all happened so fast."

And I looked into his eyes

cloudy with the morphine and
Dilaudid, his face puffy and
sweating

and it felt like 1,000 tiny insects

were crawling on my skin.

And when the extra dope

from his IV kicked in

he said, "What's that? It sounds

like a marimba band."

And he went back to the New York Times
crossword puzzle and

my mother and I almost

had to laugh.

 

 

 

All of this

Mother

at the time of your divorce

I was a seven—year—old boy
shivering in a towel

watching the way a light bulb
cascaded the blue—black color of your hair
while you swabbed the labyrinth
of my ears

_for wax

and whispered

that no one person

could ever possess

another.

I still hear that whisper

after all these years,

still find those Italian eyes of yours
fixed

yet

suddenly alone

for a woman of 54,

the corpse of your second husband
lowered into the crematorium,

the death of each sunset

smearing your windows

with more and more

ink.

(cont. on next page)

43

 

 

 

 

 

44

(new stanza)

Mother

those mornings and nights with you
still whirl inside me

like something lost,

like toys left to turn in the dark,
that small boy

whose shirt you lifted back at bedtime
so he looked Egyptian

so his laughter peaked.

Later you tucked him into pajamas
that cradled his toes like pockets,
told him stories

till the lids finally fell

till the tears broke down

your face

and you hugged him

between your arms.

 

 

 

This minute

I remember staying alone
in that rooming house

in Boston,

four floors up,

only 19, scared and hiding

from the law.

And that place there

was clean

even though it was located

in the dying section

of a downtown business district.

It's strange how you

don't forget

the classical music

that barked on your

dimestore radio,

the cigarettes the

weed

you inhaled

before propping the window open
with a stick,

climbing out on the fire escape,

gazing out and over

and down through the night.

Your reflection

already breaking

in the dark window

as if it really wasn't you

at all

but some trick to the eye

you didn't recognize

then

but just this minute

remember.

45

 

Little dogs

Hank Schepke was the first
kid in my neighborhood
to smoke dope

drink whiskey

hot-wire cars

and go to reform school.

After he got out he

stayed away from us-— just sat
glowering on his daddy's porch,
sipping beer and tossing his butts
in the driveway

until one afternoon

he swaggered into Carmany's garage,
eye dilated

and sized us up. Squeezed a tube
of airplane glue

into a brown lunch bag,

hacked and spit. Said this

was what he did for kicks

at reform school. Showed us

how to fit our faces

in the sack and breathe

as we counted 50.

(cont. on next page)

46

 

 

 

47

(new stanza)

He called it Bubbleland—-

we staggered in circles, fell

in grease spots, puked and swore
insanity. Then dry-heaved.

Hank laughed big through his Marlboro
and called us little dogs

that day. Made us run howling

over the streets and through

the back yards

of those quiet quiet suburbs.

 

 

 

 

 

48

My uncle

who loved birthday cake

died the night

two men sat in his waiting room.
Two men

Puerto Rican

leather jackets

fidgeting in the thin light

of the menorah.

The big one with the cross around his neck
slinked into the office

and slapped my uncle to the floor.

The other one hoisted him to a chair

and pushed a rag down his throat

and wrapped his wrists

with an extension cord.

Shattering the glass case with a pistol
they stuffed their pockets
with barbiturates and heroin

and left him propped up like that

while the cars and trucks of New York
hummed over the bridge into Brooklyn,
and lovers shared umbrellas and smoke
on beaches in Atlantic City,

the moon

creeping up his window

like a snail.

 

49

Nice pants

When you ask her out

you're scared. This one's educated

a poet in lipstick,

in black,

diamonds,

spikes.

A hard cut like her

in the hallway of the English department.

You check out your brush denims later

in the Mens Room

your old turtleneck

a few zits. You think of the rooming house
you live in. How long it's been.

Two years.

More.

That night in the auditorium

you square your shoulders

shift in the seat

tuck your hands into the sleeves of the suit
hoping she won't notice.

They're too short.

(cont. on next page)

 

 

 

(new stanza)

But she's kind.

Only stares at your profile.

The nose, forehead

chin.

What she mentions is the shoes
(wrinkled from rainwater) but

she thinks they're handmade.

Italian leather.

You let her think that.

You phone your mother in a hurry
the next day.
Go out shopping for cotton shirts

gaberdine pants.

Tell her you're giving up cigarettes.

She smiles.

Slips out the Master Charge.

For the first time you look handsome.

Like Al Pacino
turning red
in the three—way mirror.

Dianne will like this, you decide.

(cont. on next page)

50

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

51

(new stanza)

Your mother presses your hand
in her hand

so you can feel
the thin gold wedding ring.
Her eyes are big
and black.

"Nice pants," you tell her.

"Nice pants," she repeats.

 

 

52

careful

a brown rat
bit the hand
of my mother
asleep

only nine
arm dangling
off the bed

in Detroit.

45 years later
in her condo

in D.C.

she still sleeps
both hands
tucked

under

the pillow.

 

 

 

53

The Missing Card

In the day ward, men and women line up

for Thorazine in Dixie cups.

A man at a coffeetable turns cards over

in rows, face up.

His skull is shaved and twitches a quarter turn
on the neck. Propped on a chair,

he attempts to match red on black,

jack on queen. If he runs out of cards

he wins.

The man studies his piles, kings

with swords stuck through their heads.

A stream of saliva dangles

from his gray-green lip.

He's trying to weave the missing card

into that long braid. Smoke rolls over his shoulders

into light.

One patient rises and moves

toward the TV suspended from the ceiling.
The man at the table flicks cards,

his wrists mapped with scars.

His eyes roll like pills to the window.
Two eyes stare back. They mock him

like the joker, a face split

into laughter and pity,

the belled cap jingling like leaves

against the iron bars.

 

 

l a

 

54

No passage

Everywhere scizophrenics meander
under fluorescent light

every day

in slippers

over tile

wearing down the same squares,
cigarettes smoking always
smoking

dispersing

into oblivion

of ceiling

of lung.

No talk but self—talk

crazy talk.

An odd place to land
this day ward

every chair

every couch

every table painted
olive drab

and peeling-—
vacuuming, mopping it
my job

scrubbing down its institutional walls
my odd task

the dirt worked in——

never coming out.

 

Up at Jeanie's

My father left me waiting

for hours

in that cab,

the numbers falling

in clicks on the meter

until the cabbie,

tired of staring out the windshield,

said I better go see.

The air felt cooler

on the sidewalk,

the sky heavy with stormclouds.
Tottering into the brick building
up stairs

I stopped

when I recognized the muffled rumble
of their voices

calling names

I could not catch

through the door.

I could only feel the thud
of pottery and glass

from the hallway,
swooshing like fastballs
in my ears,

landing strange as gunfire.

(cont. on next page)

55

 

 

(new stanza)

There was nothing to do

but wait it out,

memorize the empty white walls
and the Johnson/Humphrey button
clipped over the keyhole.

Or gaze down through the tiny windows
into the wet street

where my cabbie slumped

on his steering wheel,

gray—faced and dying,

cigar butt in teeth,

his checkered cab

yawning its exhaust

like bad blood

into the rain.

 

56

 

 

 

Slipping Through Fire

I always anticipated the weekends

when I would leave the hushed suburbs

and see my father

transported by his bumpy Studebaker

to Detroit,

to a neighborhood of crumbling brownstones
and brown men and brown women

and young boys

who knew how to play stickball

behind storefronts clenched with iron bars.
Boys like Raymond Florez

who called me his "walkie"

and lifted weights

and guzzled vodka

at the age of 10.

At my father's apartment

we stayed up all night on bongos,
his tenor sax squawking

to the records of Billie Holiday
while I ate pumpkin seeds

until my lips swelled

with salt.

Snapping fluorescent light

on bathroom walls

spotted with cockroaches,

I squatted on the wooden seat
and heard them

thud the tile floor.

(cont. on next page)

 

57

 

 

 

 

 

58

(new stanza)

And in the morning

standing out on the balcony,

four stories up, I
the skyline of Detroit

still washed in the iodine

of burning buildings,

the asphalt hissing

and smothered with taxies.

That night the Studebaker
weaved us back

to my mother's house.

My father's breath felt forced
and hard,

mean cigarettes ticking

in the pull-out ashtray,

tears dripping

off his.Roman nose.

He told me he was afraid

afraid my mother's new husband Phillipe
would wing me

to Honolulu

where I would disappear

in the palm trees

(cont. on next page)

 

 

 

59

(new stanza)

leaving him without

a trace,

without a phone call,

weightless,

the steering wheel

a cradle for his head,
the odometer luminous,
sinking his eyes

in poison.

 

60

After the divorce

I would visit my father
on weekends. Eight years old
I would sleep with him
in his big antique bed. And sometimes
in the night I would wake up
to his snoring
that smacking of lips like a drunk,
his arm encircling me
hugging me tight
as a circle of steel
like he'd probably hugged
my mother once .
so I couldn't budge or wake him
or squirm out. I couldn't wriggle free
of him and he'd hold me like that
for the rest of the night
as I'd stare up at the ceiling,
stuCco and white in the bare blue light
of the TV static
and I'd listen to his snoring breath
in my ears and the white noise
of the TV and then the siamese cat Bogie
would suddenly wail out
and I'd think, yes
yes damn it.
That was it.
That was
it.

 

 

 

bedbugs

In those days

my father rented

a white clapboard cottage

on Hamburg Lake,

an unfurnished

and badly heated three-roomer
that smelled of field mice
and hay.

All weekend

we fought against it—-

cast in the gloom of the Motorola,
pressing over the pages

of magazines and books.

My father crushing beer cans,
smoking his cigarettes,

the Dalmation barking

at pick—ups,

tiny stones snapping

at the window.

On Sunday

my father drove me

back. Next to him

on the front seat

I would imagine the roaches
and ants falling

off his kitchen ceiling. Later
my mother kissed my forehead,
he eyes lined and wet

as she Clicked the big door
shut.

(cont. on next page)

61

 

 

 

62

(new stanza)

Then sitting me down

on the couch

she'd yank off my shirt
and check my arms and back
for bruises. Once

she discovered

these tiny red marks

on my chest.

But all she said was
"Bedbugs."

 

 

 

The Catch

That morning

I heard my grandmother's
heavy shoes

in the spare room,

the words baited in Italian,

the click of a suitcase.

Peering through the picture window
I could make out
my mother
sitting next to her,
face tight
in the red Fiat,

eyes cast in a straight line.

Behind me
on the black couch
my father slept
dead drunk as usual,
his mouth puckered open

like a hooked bass.

 

63

 

 

 

64

Franks and beans

April came to Prospect Street.
Bluejays snickered on telephone wires
neurotic squirrels raced up trees
holding water.

Our tommy guns exhausted

Burton and I marched

through the Ann Arbor slush.

His belly popping buttons

as we wrestled to the mud.

My comrads jeering in a crazy circle.
Their fists raised

to the sun.

After school, in the living room

my parents' threats

and voices

rose to shrieks and broken furniture.
My mother rushed through the hallway,
her narrow heels

clacking over the floor,

yanked me by my seven—year—old arm
into the bedroom

and bolted the door.

My father hammered his fists

and implored me

to open the one inch bulsa board
that separated us

from him.

(cont. on next page)

 

—_

 

 

 

65

(same stanza)

I rose from the bed like a ghost,
my hand on the doorknob.

But I was frozen.

Caught between my father's call
and my mother's bloodless glare.
Her fingernails digging

tiny red crescents

into the back of my wrist.

Finally my father's mad pounding
stopped

and we heard the front door

slam

and the VW sputter to life,

choking to the Rx for cigarettes.

Shuffling into the kitchen

I sawed tomatoes into sandwiches,
spread mayonaise on Wonder bread
and, balancing the plastic tray
on one palm

rapped on the bedroom door.
Mother unlocked it

and crawled back under the patchwork quilt.

With wooden jaws

she chewed the sandwiches, _

her Adam's apple throbbing in a bruise,
orange juice pinching her cheeks,

two eyes zeroed in black.

I kneeled beside her

on the hard floor

my eyes lowered in silence.

(cont. on next page)

 

 

 

 

66

(new stanza)

That night the locusts sang like electricity.
My father returned home

silent and drunk

and we sat rigidly around the table

and they didn't fight

or talk to each other,

as we picked at our franks and beans

and stared

into the Zenith.

 

Dinosaurs

When I was seven, my father gave me
dinosaurs,

little toy dinosaurs,

their Latin names

cut across their plastic underbellies.

I kept them in a shoebox,

taking them out to do battle.

Pitting Tyrannosaurus Rex, the meat-eater
against swooping Pterradactyl

or vegetarian Brontosaurus

while my mother coughed on Kools

and watched "The Guiding Light“.

I won't forget coming home,

what I heard

opening the door, my mother and father
roaring at each other like motorcycles.

I didn't know why, just ducked

67

beneath ceramic planters exploding like bombs

and melamine plates

sailing through the kitchen.

With his steel palms, my father
slapped my mother's face,

squeezed his fingers around her throat

and slammed her skull against the plaster wall

until they both fell exhausted

on the linoleum.

(cont. on next page)

 

 

0‘

.0

 

68

(new stanza)

My parents didn't notice me

uncoiling from my fetal ball

and dashing into the bedroom,

feeling my way through the half—darkness,
my brain spinning,

vomit sticking to my shoes.

I switched on the lamp

and plopped down on the polished oak floor
and opened the shoebox.

All the dinosaurs were in there,

every color and shape and species.

I picked up Tyrannosaurus Rex.

His ruby jaws spread apart like scissors.
I put him back in the shoebox.

The rain outside tapped at my window

and my reflection loomed

in the darkening glass.

 

 

_-

 

 

 

.0

.0

 

69

The Other World

At bedtime

I dreaded the darkness,
under quilts,

afraid to picture

my absence from the room.

The light

seeping under the bottom
of the bedroom door

was my mother

and father

strolling on sand

in that other world.

 

 

 

 

"Il'lllllllll'lllll‘.Ills