Works in Progress
The Bird Feeder
The squirrels after all will find their way,
dangle down from the metal arm,
gnaw the perches off its face,
and hop to fence posts, cracked corn
dried cherry, or shelled almond in paw.
Their winter plans did not include this windfall,
settled as they were in the great oak’s boughs,
content to seek acorns hidden under leaves
like edible chips off the grail. Thank God,
they chirp, for the eyes of chickadees.
I wish I could say they do not fight
over which one will next suspend
itself above the paved patio,
risking gifts from a shadowy hand.
But they are broad minds after all,
living as they can and free
and beautiful in this as any
cardinal, goldfinch or royal jay.
White below gray, I wish
I had understood that gift.
In a café, killing time,
you find nothing easily done.
The satellite music breathes too loud,
as at the counter orders fill in shouts.
A pretty young boy is
casting grasping eyes your way.
Outside the window an endless cast
of unknowns lead their dogs and kids
on languid rounds, while purpose rests
with joggers, buses and gypsy cabs.
For you with dreams and magazines,
losing this hour is art as hard
to master as what happens now
or promises not to happen next.
from I Was the Fat Kid (memoir)
At twelve years old, I stood five feet, three inches tall, and weighed at least a hundred and eighty pounds. I have a photo of myself at this age, dressed in a brown velour robe over a tight yellow tee-shirt. My frizzy hair still mussed from a fitful Christmas Eve’s sleep, my still unbraced, crooked teeth prominent, I look like a pre-adolescent trailer park manager. During this period, in fact, I never looked good. Every day I half-concealed my unruly mop under a baseball cap, which I often wore backwards. My shirts were capacious, long-sleeve, baseball-style numbers, and most of my pants were Sears corduroys with the thigh cords worn smooth from running touch football patterns or rounding the kickball bases on Edmund Street.
Kickball was one of the few realms in which my weight could be an asset. Even in my amplitude, I was a good athlete. When I swung my fifty-pound leg, the ball exploded down the block with the impact of a cherry bomb. In the wake of a good wallop, and much to the amusement of the other kids, I would tear around the bases like a rampaging hippo, my sweat pants pinching my thighs, my gut a-jiggle, my ankle throbbing from an Achilles tendon perpetually sore from turning its heavy burden on a half-dollar, if not a dime. As I rumbled past Susie stationed at second base, my not-frequently-enough bathed body would stink of my mother’s sauce and Vaseline Intensive Care Lotion, because my pre-game preparation usually included gorging myself on a plate of macaroni and then retiring to my second-floor bedroom, where I would masturbate into one of the family’s bath towels while thinking about Susie’s ass, despite not quite knowing what to do if I ever got my hands on it.
