One night last week the real harvest moon

made a cameo appearance in the Jersey sky.

People came out to look like it was someone who had moved

and now talked about the neighborhood with a nostalgic smile.

 

When I was a little boy in the city of Newark,

being driven home from a day that I played to a tie,

falling asleep in the backseat,

a younger moon like a nightlight soothed my tired eyes.

It was a bigger and brighter yellow and ruled the quiet sky.

 

Sometimes it feels now like this autumn moon

wants to pull me up and set me to the side.

My old friend seems to be tapping out a tune

And looking at his watch with mischievous guile.

I Never Lived  With My Father

 

Today I’m wearing my father’s shoes.

Gray McGregor casuals with Velcro straps,

that were given to me when he died.

 

He stored them in shoetrees and kept neatly

in his landscaped closet.

 

I’m afraid that when I take them off, they’ll get thrown

into my pile with the stray tie

that’s slipped down in wrinkles and disuse.

 

I want to feel different in my father’s shoes.

Maybe I will osmotically become a golfer

or acquire a knowledge of how to fix jukeboxes.

I search my arm but the tattoo of his name has not appeared.

 

There should be some connection to these shoes.

I made a ceremony out of not putting them on until I was ready.

I handled the smooth leather and admired the clean soles.

 

“Dammit Dad!”

 

Nope. Nothing there.

Another gravestone that doesn’t talk back.

 

I made up a story to tell his wife about how I felt

the first time that I wore them. She looked confused

and said, “Isn’t that strange, he never got to put them on.”

The Big World

Apprehensively,

The boy stands next to the man at the urinal.

Hung open against the wall

 

Zipper down,

Shivering against the cold porcelain.

 

His father is huge.

 

The man on the other side is all darkness and hair,

And the boy tries for a better look,

 

but his father says, “Pay attention

to your own business.”

 

The boy fingers his puniness.

His large eyes deflate to a tense squint

and he wishes he was alone

happily making rivers into the bowl at home.

Open Heart

( with complications)

My step-mother’s voice was choked.

“Your father’s on the operating table.

They can’t stop the bleeding. They can’t

put his heart back in… he won’t clot.”

 

For the next few weeks, I drove to the Heart

Center wondering if my father was still…

 

He was in The Intensive Care of intensive cares

attached to tubes on the side of his neck,

tubes that went into his lungs,

tubes that came out of his chest,

a tube into each of his arms and out his penis:

 

Draining and pumping, attached to machines

That caused his breath, machines that fed his blood

machines with dials and lights and suction cups

that were everywhere but the privacy of his mind

which would not let him go.

 

Just below each bed at a panel, sat a nurse

with pencils and charts and circulating doctors.

Immediate family was allowed to see for fifteen minutes

once, every two hours.

I bent his arms and legs and stared with fear, curiosity and awe

at his helpless and unfamiliar body:

the shrunken tattoo of his name on his arm,

the cold white skin of his legs

the puffed, frail chest, the twitching face

the closed eyes that sometimes seemed to want to open.

 

Continuously, I spoke to him.

I had wished most to be with him when I couldn’t be.

I thought about how this body would have treated me

if we had been together when I was growing up.

 

I’m told that it’s often like that,

but it felt good to comb his hair.

It was a wonder to see a flash of eyes

That I learned were very blue.

 

When they told us that he’d had a stroke

I resolved that I would not leave him like that

and plotted how it might be necessary to help him die.

 

My wife said that I was being crazy,

but it was one of those times when sanity was less than enough

and I was crazed because it was how I felt when I used to pray.

“Daddy,” I would say

“You’re gonna get better.

You’re brave and tough and if that’s not enough,

I promise that it will be OK.”

 

And I pleaded with the distance to let me get through.

I begged the distance to learn new ways.

 

As my father came around,

the tubes and machines were gradually removed.

and they took him to regular Intensive Care

and waited to see how much of him remained.

 

First he opened his eyes and could turn his head.

Then he could move on one side.

then on half of the other.

He tried to communicate with a letter board, shaky finger spelling,

Illegible notes…

And when they took the tube out of his throat,

he talked to me.

For Morris Nanton

That man’s dancing on that piano.

He’s big and bulky as me

and knows what it’s like to feel awkward

and listen to him dancing and talking.

 

Playing long sets, just right

Filling in betweens with solo introductions

When that man’s up there, he sitting with me all the time

 

Wearing a loose turnaround shirt

Listening over his shoulder to that silky drum and

the bow draw and finger-walk on the bass

 

That man hears the music of clinking glasses,

The cooperation of ice, alcohol and a good pace

that makes the night feel special

 

In front of a smoked mirror with shades,

he raises his head to let the spirit flow freely.

He doesn’t say anything stupid

but he gets those silly looks