-the story of the finding and proving of the true house at 1017 Bedford-
1.
before there was a gang hanging-out on the corner
of Columbus Park at the right field line,— there was another gang
made-up of our older cousins and their girlfriends who were the older
sisters of those who will become our girlfriends.
but another gang before them,
those kids,— they were our fathers, and their girlfriends,
they would become our mothers.
those boys and their girls hung-around on the same street corner as we,
as did our older cousins before us.
the houses were much the same then as they were when I was young.
the look of the shingles was the same and the interiors were populated
by the same kinds of occupants roaming the rooms, shouting,
eating in the kitchens, watching televisions in the same parlors or
listing to radios.
the great cabinet radio in our house
was located in the kitchen
against the wall between the bedroom
shared by my brother, three years my younger, and me
which smelled like the hamper in the bathroom,
and the bedroom shared by our grandparents
which was dark all the time.
through the narrow hallway
we find the parlor where
we watched television by night,
sprawled-out on the rug where we also
clung to one another during the hurricanes.
on those occasions, my father
laid tape across the windows, warding-off
the heavy winds and rising floodwaters
same as applied lambs-blood saved the inhabitants
from Pharaoh's nasty edict.
off the parlor at the same wall
were the bedrooms of my teenaged sister,
three years my elder,
which looked like a small palace, filled with jewels,
exotic scents, linens and erotic nylon,
and of our parents, which was neat and orderly
with its consistently made bed where
at its foot, my father tossed his weary
trench-coat at the end of his day.
every animal we ever had lived and died
at 1017 Bedford.
a few of these deaths
were attributed to aging
but most were caused by violence.
the violence stemmed from impossible
attempts at escape.
the screeching of wheels,
the sickening thump,
a kid or a cat?
we had a lot of cats.
we had white mice, parakeets
and gold fish.
we had hamsters and guinea pigs.
no dogs.
not one dog.
we had but the one lizard.
we had rabbits, and at Easter-time,
a few living yellow peeping chicks
which were delivered to us
in shallow boxes by the same uncle.
In short time, these were buried near the craggy
vegetable garden across from the grapevine in the backyard.
once, one of our more adventurous parakeets
escaped into the wild when perched on the visiting
egg-man’s sweaty fedora
and it flew across the backyard cemetery,
then over the fence into Rachlin’s Junkyard
never to be heard from again.
our pets were requiems in the making;
walk one in through the kitchen,
then carry it out to the graveyard in back
in the endless cycle of animal life and death.
I’m telling you this merely to set the scene.
but also to say that this is the place
where the poems were born.
for example,—
I thought about the one lizard we kept
in the small desert-like aquarium
under the window streaming lots of sunlight
as I wrote the recent poem somewhat dedicated to
Federico Garcia Lorca.
2.
the gas stove was old, huge
and hissed with burning blue flames.
the refrigerator was big, too
as was the winter-clanging space-heater.
the kitchen's single sink
was deep enough for two kids
and the toilet had its own little room
next to the tub
which had its own little room.
the telephone weighed-in at 36 pounds.
the screen door to the kitchen had cancer.
the linoleum, tuberculosis.
the wallpaper patterns were washed-out
but as ever-present as wandering polio.
my sister's room was a goldmine.
the television, miraculous.
every candy dish on every surface
was filled to capacity.
houseflies vacationed there in summer months
doped-up on island meadows of peppermint.
In this house, when my sister's girlfriends
came waltzing through for an overnight sleep-in,
some of them bathed in the tub before bed.
they took baths in my tub.
yes, you, Beverly Greenwood.
you, Beverly Greenwood.
3.
I'm speaking of you, Beverly Greenwood.
the ballpark was across the street
and so was the ESSO gas station.
the great Italian bakeries were across the street
and the Marconi Club as well, belching-out
its nighttime drunks in the early morning hours.
the cemetery was close by,
and by that I mean the cemetery for human remains.
the church was within sight
and the grade school, too.
the great and terrible Hugo A. Dubuque School.
Sandra, the girl at the desk
one row to the right
and three desks forward,
lived on Highland Avenue.
I wrote about her
in a couple of poems,—
one of them on seeing her house
from my bike for the first time.
I was lost on the day
when she knew she was rich.
that's right, lost when
she discovered her wealth,
her beauty and when enlightenment
came over her.
the saddle of my bike
caught fire and singed my youth.
sure, we can still be friends.
Sandra died of leukemia
while in the 5th grade at the Hugo A.—
but this time, for once, it was something
that had nothing to do with me.
4.
requiem aeternam dona eis domine.
and amen. and amen.
