On Jupiter Place. Nicholas Christopher
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my friend
her mother the widow
had suffered a nervous breakdown
so that Genevieve too
was being raised by her grandmother
herself a widow born in Sicily
who carried a cane to ward off dogs
and across the street from them
Mr. Fallon the used car salesman
who had no license
and was driven to work
by his wife a secret drinker
that everyone knew about
both of them tormented
by their roughneck son
who one day put me
in a headlock until I turned blue
and I knocked his tooth out
and bloodied his nose
and his mother screamed that I was a savage
that we were all savages
though in fact I rarely got into trouble
and mostly kept to myself
while my father all that time
lived alone in the small apartment
that had been our home
before my mother was hospitalized
and held down two jobs
one to support us
the other to pay her medical bills
until finally she was released
from the hospital
and that first afternoon was resting
in my grandmother’s room
when I was brought in to her
I hadn’t seen her in a long time
she was pale and very thin
her hair was cut short
and I told her to get out
of my grandmother’s bed
out of her room
I didn’t know who she was anymore
maybe I never did or could —
not the girl that danced
until dawn on her wedding night
or the middle-aged woman
with ailments real and imaginary
who withered beneath
the weight of her fears —
for when she died many years later
having loved me (I know) as best she could
she was still a stranger
I work the graveyard shift in a city of believers
hunched over a steel desk in a cone of light
facing a window with drawn blinds
beyond which the innocents are being slaughtered
in an enormous courtyard against all four walls
firing squads rotating around the clock
while masked men in the watchtowers
keep count in red ink on red pads
simultaneously recording and concealing
the numbers of dead
and nodding with each round of gunfire
mumbling praise to their leader
and his god whose righteousness and mercy
he mirrors while I keep to my work
with bowed head and unblinking eyes
sorting papers affixing stamps
having long ago given up trying
to stop my ears or black out my fear
my face burning not with shame but exhaustion
for I only sleep a few hours a night
and I eat once a day
cold scrapple and rice porridge
like a prisoner myself
in a cell that requires no locks
unable to recognize my own handwriting
even when I’ve left myself a note
reminding me of who I once was but never
(anymore) what I might have been
which later I crumple and burn
in a standard issue ashtray
the momentary lick of flame
no more or less remote to me than a star
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