Sometimes in life
We people
People with money
Not Bill Gates money
But middle class money
The:
I own, not rent
Cars are less than 5 years old
Clothes from thrift shop because they’re
retro and cool
Not because they’re cheap
Middle class money
We people
are presented,
with
Mental Polaroids of poverty
Frozen moments of a scene that gives us
Pause
Pause, because we feel both guilty and
grateful
Guilty for having the things we have
And
Grateful for having the things we have
The cliché
Man on the roadside
Holding the torn cardboard box-top
With Homeless and Hungry
Written in black marker
The women in line at Walmart
4 kids in tow
Forced to put things back because she comes
up short
Embarrassed she screams
at her youngest to stop crying
he doesn’t need new Spiderman pajamas
Moments
My moment
My Polaroid of poverty
Created guilt too
But a different kind of guilt
Guilt not generated by my bank account
But of my short-comings as a father
As a man
Sunday night
My time to relax
then
Unexpected
Unwanted
My son’s voice
Blending with Hawkeye Peirce
From a M.A.S.H rerun
I make out the word
Algebra….again
3rd kid…3rd
time through
For me
He needed help
A voice barely audible
As I fingered the remote
Watching the volume bars increase
Moving steady like a box-car train
Left to right
He needed help
Now a 13 year-old body standing beside
my head
A head attached to my 42-year old, inclined
Couch absorbed body
“Turn it down, Dad!”
With a smile
I watch as the box cars go on the move
again
“DAD!”
Mute
“DAD!”
Wow
The sudden silence from the mute button
Coupled with the volume-compensated voice
of my son
Shocked me
Hurt my ears
And agitated me
“What?! What do you want now!”
I spend the next 20 minutes
Explaining what the unknown variable
x
equals
missing the end of my show
I do it with anger
And I don’t really even know why
He finishes his homework and goes to bed
Mad
No, “I love you dad”
No, “Thanks dad”
No, “See you in the morning dad”
We drove to school
On a dark December day
A light coating of snow
during the night added to the overcast
gloom
Silence (pause)
Me angry (pause)
Him angry (pause)
As we approached the bottom of a hill
I saw them
I squinted through the three-inch diameter
circle
Hurriedly scraped in the driveway
Hoping it would grow with the breath of
the defroster
But the frigid cold had held firm
Tightening the tether
Three inches only
They rode to the bottom of the hill
And stopped
Waiting for the light to change
Too dangerous to brave a highway crossing
Against the light
The cargo too precious
Paused
Across the street
Was a man and a boy on a bike
The bike
The bike was on I would have ridden when
I was young
Single sprocket
The kind you could add a sissy-bar
Behind the banana-seat…
Extend the forks, if your dad could weld…
Playing cards gripped tight with clothes
pins…
Rust coated frame
layered
with 3 different colors of spray paint
Lazy curved handlebars leaned back
Just a bit further than the factory norm
That was the bike
