The Innisfree Poetry Journal
www.innisfreepoetry.org
by Louis McKee
BLACK WING TIPS Black wing tips, the shoes my father was married in, rented, and never returned, a sin he gloried in, much the way I celebrate The Babe Ruth Story, a book I checked out of the library in nineteen fifty-eight, and which, for one reason or another, is still shelved in a place of honor in my den. My father's shoes were all I took from his home the night he died; they sit on the floor of the closet in the spare room; Today I gave then a spit-shine, buffed them with an old chamois. The book was due December 28th, the feast of the Holy Innocents. One of these days I'm going to take it down and read it. SCANDAL I used to think if anyone went over the wall it should have been Sister Donna Michelle, young, pretty, with breasts she couldn't hide, even in the heavy folds of a blue habit, under the starched white wimple, and fat beads. "Over the wall," what my parents would whisper about priests and nuns who suddenly went missing; "transferred," they told us, even about the young one who disappeared with CYO money and the cheerleading coach, one of the worst kept secrets of the neighborhood. Years later, a thousand miles away, I met a priest I knew from the parish back home‚"once a priest, always a priest‚" but he and his wife were teaching at the University I chose to escape to halfway across the country, and in the union cafeteria one day I shook his hand, anointed hand, and remembered and pretended to forget and they said I had to come over to their place some night for dinner, to talk about the good old days, the old neighborhood, but we parted after only a few minutes, and without exchanging addresses, or even a single word of truth.
ABLUTION Cleanliness is next to Godliness, it comes into my head as I shower, the heat and grit of another day running in rivulets for the drain. This is as naked as I'm likely to get, a good time, I guess, for confession, soaping my hands, washing away their sins, rubbing the sudsy cloth over my face. My eyes have sinned, yes, so burning is fair, and if it doesn't taste good, perhaps I should have thought of that before I said the things I did. My soaped up hands take care of what they can, giving extra attention to cock and balls—where they've been, what they've done . . . . God would be proud of how I clean up, although I'm not sure he'd look too kindly on all that extra attention. PROOF I held your breast, my hand cupping the all of it, my fingers made much of your nipples— that was how we spent our last night in Lake Bluff; sleeping late, the lake never more blue, taking the sun and the sweet Illinois air, the song of the loosestrife along the roadside, leaving us a sad emptiness and memories. All day I've been going through the house touching this and that, setting things right, straightening up like a careless thief. I think everything looks fine, but I know I've left clues, fingerprints everywhere. Someone who cared could tell I was here, I'd left my mark. This house was my place, no doubt about it. If ever they come to you, to dust your breast, you know, don't you, there will be no denying it? This is the reason today for the quiet smile on my face. WORKING OUT ON THE SCHUYLKILL The river is the place to flex your muscles. Rowers work their sculls toward the bridge while the sound of metal weights comes clanging from the boathouse where their teammates are lifting and laughing and the path beside the street is busy with runners working up a sunny afternoon sweat. It takes two buses and ninety minutes to get here, but once the weather breaks it's time to train, and today I've brought along Mr. Emerson; he and I will sit in the fresh greeny grass between the rowers and runners. The heavier the book, and the more reps, the quicker the road to success.
Copyright 2006-2012 by Cook Communication
|