David
At three years old
you decided not to
be a Sunbeam.
Somehow, you escaped
the class and the whole church,
made your way,
through the LA
streets,
skies full of jets
screaming toward LAX
to North American
Rockwell.-
The parking lot guard
was crying as he
phoned for Dad
to come get your
small, defiant self
In the good years,
when we thought we
were rich and happy,
we’d sprawl on those
orange mats by the fireplace.
Mom brought hot
buttered popcorn
and mugs of coke in
those matching multicolored bowls.
Dad would tell stories
about the Slime People,
More lurid by
fireglow.
All the neighbor kids
were home before dark if they’d heard
We spent our summers
at the cabin.
Baby oiled at Lake
Gregory,
renting red
paddleboards and chawing on frozen bananas.
Hunting with butterfly
nets at Lizard Rock
amongst the giant
stones that were somewhere near the old dump.
Mom always burnt the
hotcakes,
but milk was so good
and cold in those tin cups.
You and I built
resorts among the pines, always stopping to say hello to
Toenail, who was our tree
One time, coming home
from the cabin you fell asleep in the car
and,
uncharacteristically, Dad carried you toward the house.
We went in through the
back, past the pool and he thought it would be
funny
to toss you in. It was
unheated and you woke screaming and thrashing in that
cold water.
When I went to Utah
for the first time,
Uncle Tommy driving so
fast on those deserted roads,
I came back sure that
I would live there -
with rivers and
rhubarb pie and
Prince, who I could
ride whenever I wanted -
I gave you a green
Tonka truck and a big bag of M&Ms.
You gave me the
Mumps.
But when I was sick
you would rig up that box with the pulleys
from The Big
Ball of String and you’d bring me a bell to ring
if I wanted anything.
You’d come with that
big lime green cup filled with ice water.
If I didn’t ring the
bell, you’d come anyway.
In those days I danced
-
leotards and
everything.
How I laughed when you
were pressed into service
In that neon ruffled
Spanish shirt for some boy dancer who didn’t show,
or when they made you
wear the Lederhosen –once-
that Grandma brought
you from Austria.
Then there was
wrestling!
Oh we loved it!
To try the moves or to
watch
Mel Mascaras, Man of a
Thousand Faces,
Kenji Shebuya,
Freddie Blassie,
John Tolos – T O L O
S.
Our family knew it was
broken after that one day we watched wrestling
You and me and dad on
the bed,
A slip of the tongue
and the house of cards came down.
You and I – we always
remembered when.
So, then we were to
move.
To that big house
being built.
I always hated it.
And Raggles-our good
dog
Who came everywhere
with us and so, when she was left
dug through doors-
they had the vet kill her,
because she loved us.
It was you who remembered
they took us to Disneyland the night they
did it.
I remember the time
Dad marshalled us all
to the high school track,
He announced, if I
could run a mile without stopping-
We would go get my
long promised horse that day.
I jogged onto the
track.
Ran perhaps a quarter
of a mile before I slowed,
a stitch in my side.
I was so mad, so
embarrassed.
But you loped out and
ran backwards ahead of me
the whole rest of the
way- chanting
“horse…horse.”
There was no horse.
Our family just walked
home,
To that house in
Meredith Woods.
That house had so many
secrets.
You went wild there,
and I- after the
Love of My Life
taught me I was as
disposable as cum wiped Kleenex-
well, I was no longer
a goddess.
You were the only
person with a penis I spoke meaningfully to for fifteen years.
We drank together, you
seriously, me companionably.
I remember the year
you begged the $50 I was saving for a Christmas tree
and bought a bag of
bud.
But you brought me a
big tree on Christmas Eve.
I think you stole it
You got wilder and
wilder, and I got sadder and sadder.
After enough times of
calling the police,
I refused to see you.
Eventually I moved.
But you’d call me at 3
am and make me laugh and laugh.
-That time you told me
you sang Iron Man in karaoke
with Ray Liota at some
pizza joint!
You only spoke to the
man who has loved me now for twelve years
Once-
and then you promised
him Magilla Gorilla DEATH if he should ever hurt me.
He was stunned. He’d
never met you – ever- and you were serious about the threats.
But then you flipped
like a switch and started belting out some
Judas Priest tune-
right on the phone.
I guarantee he will
never forget you.
One day I got the call
that if I wanted to
see you alive,
I had to leave then.
I got in the car and
drove to California,
found you tied to a bed,
with a block in your mouth to keep you from chewing through the
respirator, which
you’d done before.
“No hope,” the Dr
said.
You were the color of
an anemic carrot,
blood cells self
destructing willy- nilly in your dying body.
Your eyebrows were
gone.
And yet you lingered
and lingered and finally,
after days, I left,
went back home to wait
for the call to tell me
you finally passed-
fifteen years to the
day after Dad died.
We took it that he
finally for once showed up for you
I went back once,
thinking of you- to tell Toenail-and he was gone.
Meeting of Monsters
By the time I was
Aware
it was too late for prevention.
So
There she sat, the maternal dragon-
scourging me with baleful, hooded eyes.
Sucking voluminous lungfuls of
sour, fulminous smoke,
incubated to that
delicate point just before loss of consciousness
in the poisoned
passages of her airways.
Writhing wreaths spat forth at the velocity of venging
arrows,
to penetrate the
small defense of my flesh and shrivel me outright
- her assessment of the idea that
I was “The One”.
That idea (dressed in summer clothes and unprepared)
could no more cross my mind than it could the Antarctic
desert
That idea,
wholly unanticipated,
yielded an instant perfect image-
Anglerfish.
And I wanted to hug her and
whisper that not in a
million years
would I allow her
precious son
to bite and dissolve
to gonads in my flesh.
But that seemed rude to say,
So I just wiggled my lure and tried to minimize my mouthful
of dangerous dentition.
