Rusty Gold
you wouldn’t think ten
miles from here is a twenty-
million-dollar house
but there are lots of those
they call this part
of my state the gold coast
with huge rich
houses on the beach
but here stuck off
the trail that time forgot
there’s only tin
and with a little creek
at the bottom of the slope
tin goes brown and flakes to rust
real fast
like that old pickup
semi-rotting in the yard
so we have rust stuck
smack in the middle of the gold
ha Rusty Gold
sounds like the kind of
country star my father listens to
My quivering heart
Beats just for you . . .
then turns it up
and drinks and sleeps
or drinks and cries
into his hands
I’d call myself that
hi, I’m Rusty Gold
except it wouldn’t
stick
not stick
like
Slug.
or like the other name they
love to call me
It Was the Fourth
day of school this year
the hallway after seventh period
I’d almost cleared
my first week without saying much
or being seen
when
a kid a junior his clothes
reeking of sour gym shorts
passed me quick
I felt him swing around
and stop and tug his friend back
half laughing eyes widening
as he’d found the answer
to something big
It’s him!
and some cold hand twisted my stomach
into a boiling wet towel
no, you don’t see me
I didn’t say
but the second kid half laughing now
let himself be dragged right
over to my face
Really? Is it you?
We were just talking about you.
I looked down the hall
to the doors too far away
It’s him. I know it is.
what?
I said
that’s all just
what?
You actually live there?
The green house in the junkyard.
Is that where you live?
It is. I saw him once.
What’s your name?
I wanted to say nobody
and poke his eye out
but said nothing
I think his name is Junk.
said the second one
He lives there.
Let’s call him it. Junk.
Hey, Junk,
How much for a
Twenty-oh-eight
Subaru fender?
the half laughing was all
laughing now
I Never Was
great to begin with
not a zippy
super gift of happy fun
from anyone to anyone
I am fifteen
can barely touch the top
of the doorframe
with my fingertips
if I jump for it
have puppet
strings for muscles
am not good
with bats and balls
and sticks and goals
my throat closes
and I choke
when Coach
makes me run in gym
the reason is
my lungs are flat
and small as
as
as
I don’t know
tea bags
Plus
my face is kind
of narrow
like a wedge
from my nose
back to my ears
and my chin
comes to a point
Nine months for this?
maybe my mother said
or maybe not
but some kid said to his mom
once in a store
(because I have to shop
for food and soap)
He’s scary.
and I am scary
especially in the dark
when only half
my ax-head is lit
and the other’s not
you’d say so too
if you looked in
my mirror
But I See
even if I don’t talk
I look at things
(and sometimes people)
what they look like
what they do
last week at lockdown assembly
there was a girl from
my middle school
in the row in front
I looked at her hair too long
didn’t turn my eyes away
from that waterfall of hair
before she looked around and saw and
made a face that said
Why do they even let freaks in our school?
sometimes I don’t know
how long I do it
(stare from my eyes
at a thing or face)
at home Jimmy says
Don’t stare at me.
God, you’re like her.
She was always staring at me
Looking for answers.
I hate that.
I don’t have any answers.
Does it look like I have answers?
so when I can
I keep my head down
and eyes down
and look away
still
I see things
The Teachers Stopped
asking Jimmy
to come in
And talk to us about Robert.
because he kept
missing meetings
and when they called
he’d say
I’ll make it right.
I’ll talk to him.
but he didn’t make it right
or talk to me
and when they said
You know we thought
At first that he was slow.
But he’s not slow.
Your son’s not slow at all.
He’s just quiet, very quiet.
he’d shrug and say
Yeah, I guess.
there was a time
a social worker came
but Dad found out
and cleaned the house
and made a meal
I played along
because I didn’t know
what they would do
but I knew him
and it was easier
one time he almost choked
on what a counselor said
when she called
Join a club? A school club?
Him? Seriously?
Good luck with that.
I mean, I’ll ask him, but . . .
and flicked a look at me
then rolled his eyes
across the ceiling between us
of course he never asked
about me joining any club
not even
ha
the human race
I was good enough
to live at the dark end
of a dark trail
but not much else
not that I was going to join
anything anyway
but still
he never talked to me
he never asked
I never joined
I Never Joined
but if I look along and up
the valley from my house
I can spy
the sharp white finger
of the church’s tower
pointing away
from us
the church the church
why do I look up there?
because of her
my mother maybe
I don’t know
it is the parish church
of St. Dominic
which dad says she
baptized me at
Father Percy
is the guy who runs it
when I went to church
he talked from his pulpit
low and slow
like he was making up
each word before he said it
but (surprise) it sat there
like the page
of a book
when he was done
yeah
I used to go to church
maybe it was knowing
my mother held me
at that baptism bowl
and maybe I liked
to think of my mother
still in my life
or maybe I went
because there was a girl
red hair and freckly
from another school
her hands pressed flat together
at the rail not looking at me
but
oh boy
that red hair
Father Percy Talked One Day
about guess what
God
and God’s two other selves
there are a total of three of him
in heaven
taking shifts
to get it all done
but none of them
I think
get around to
the end of the trail
When There Is
no moon
the woods are blue
along the trail
the only light
the only real light
is tiny simple clean and bright
a yellow lamp
peering through the trees
far up the other way
it’s from a shed
on the far side
of the churchyard
I Went Up There Once
a couple of years
ago to see
after all what the heck
was going on
this pinhole
of bright buttery light
blinking down my woods
at night
so I crept up the slope
and looked in
a little lighted shed
and there he was
Father Percy bent
white-haired and squinting
over a table
over a little book
over a page
his pointer finger
moving under a line
on the page
I thought he must be
making up
the speech
he gives on Sunday
thou shalt not
do this
or this
or this
or be this either
then all at once
I saw his face turn
to the window
so I ducked
but I guess
he only saw
the night-black square
of glass
not me
because when
I peeked again
he was back
at the line
on the page
in the book
on the table
so I went home
that night
and that was that
He Preached Another Time
from his altar
