Colleen J. McElroy

Sidewalks of webs and weeds Run parallel to empy lots where foul deeds By handkerchief heads and winos were played, To that old house where we stayed. Irma Jean, Cora Jean and I, three debs, Against the cracks of weeds and webs. Sitting through matinees, dodging chores, Chewing gum; claiming boys were bores. But secretly grooming hair and breasts; Jennie’s brood, a female nest. Irma, long-legged, delicious full lips, Taught Cora and me to wiggle our hips. George Darlington Love, a beau, my first; They yelled his name like a tribal curse As his virginal fingers pressed our bell. Against that background of sights and smells, We ignored switchblades, zip guns, and knees Shattered by cops in that place without trees. Now memories of dances are sprinkled like seeds Among cousins and sidewalks of webs and weeds.

I The sidewalks were long where I grew up. They were as veined as the backs Of my Grandma’s hands. We knew every inch of pavement; We jumped the cracks Chanting rhymes that broke evil spirits, Played tag at sunset Among the fireflies and sweet maple trees Or sang wishful sonnets about boyfriends To the tune of whipping jump ropes. The sidewalks wrapped around corners Like dirty ribbons lacing the old houses Together in tight knots; Maple trees bordered The all-white cemetery. Sometimes we’d watch Priscilla’s uncle Sway down the dirt alley towards home. We called her Pussy, called him Crazy Max. He was feebleminded and took to fits, Barely making it from alley to pavement, Loping down the street like a drunk. We paced his jagged walk Against tumbling tunes, Taunting each pigeon-toed footstep With rhyme. The boys      bolder, louder The girls       tagging along Braids flopping like twisted hemp, Ending in brightly colored ribbons. We turned our black faces into silence When he finally made it home; Watched him grope up the broken concrete stairs, Clutch the wooden railing, Lunge for the broken screen door And his medicine. His tongue flopped wildly, Parrot noises drowning his sister’s cries As she rushed from the black pit Of their house. One day, he leaned away from the safe umbrella Of his sister’s voice; Leaned into the sky, Hanging on the porch rail like a rag doll, Then fell into the cracks of the sidewalk. We rarely chanted after that, Always passed Pussy’s house in silence. Sometimes I’d sit in the sweet stillness Of Grandma’s moldy basement And draw his outline on the wet fuzzy walls. The grey concrete backdropped my stick figure As it fell into nothingness. II Bumpsy played the Dirty Dozens As we jackknifed the length of the block, Forcing grown-ups off the street. We linked arms like soldiers, Our black legs scissoring in precision. One’s a company, two’s a crowd Three on the sidewalk is not allowed— Last night, the night before Twenty-four robbers at my door— Po-lice, po-lice, do your duty Make this boy stop feeling my booty— Mary, Mary, tell me true Who is the one you love? Tin soldiers, wooden guns, and sharp tongues. We got comic books for the price of one In blitz attacks at Old Man Farrow’s dirty store. Garages were secret places for dirty jokes, Our folks couldn’t afford cars. When we got older, we played house for real Until we found Terry’s baby sister’s body Behind a stack of tires; The melodies we’d sung still seemed to bounce Off the dirty walls and stacks of comic books. III Our houses ended at the sidewalk, Whitewashed steps gleaming like teeth Against the blocks of grey pavement. We walked three blocks just to find A vacant lot to feed Mildred’s thirst For green grass. Fat Vaughn could eat a whole sheet Of newspaper in less than three minutes. Once, I licked the damp cellar wall, But the taste didn’t match the sweet smell. Ten years later, I searched through Grandma’s Things before they were sold for auction. I found her picture, three comics and the wind-up Victrola we had used to put on our version Of Cotton Club musicals. We traded days so we could all be stars; The rest sang chorus until the Victrola Ran out of steam, the record moaning Like a sick calf. I found the stack of old pillows We collapsed on, giggling and tumbling Against each other like puppies, While the needle stuck in one groove Cutting circles in the records.

In a world where all the heroes are pilots with voices like God he brought her a strand of some woman’s hair to wear on her wing. She looked sideways at the ground silent behind the cloudy film covering her eyes knowing she would be his forever. They cruised the city nights each one spiralling away from the other but always coming home to gather stories. Dark streets bright tavern lights drunks filled with beer in the gutters. The flicker of stars shaped like a hunter’s arrow bent stars that twinkled like babies’ eyes. No babies for them. She was an outcast. He a loner. A perfect pair. Winters had made him wise and he avoided the single nests of summer. He told her about things she could see. How the dismal cover of clouds roils and explodes and the ground aches like an old woman’s knee. How wood rots against the tide good for hunting grub. How to fade and fall back into the wind. He translated her pulse into near-language. Their poetry so personal even Peterson’s Field Guide could not tap it. Only a stray hunter saw it. Shook his head once thinking it a trick of wind and wing then turned his eyes north to search for the simple flight of Brant or Canadian. Those patterns he could easily understand. That last night they drank from the river. Sucked its delicate cusps of mold sang anti social songs as if they were humans. When he flicked his handsome head to catch the drift of wind she even managed a single tear. She waited through days and nights of grief. Circled the city less then settled on the wires. The metallic conductor captured her eyes. She remembered how he proudly sang her name as he pranced from pole-top to KV line. One last fluff of feathers. One sigh for all the unnested summers. One single scratch one electrical surge of power of love. Then she fell smiling. A trick he had taught her.

he’s only a smart-ass when he’s home with Mandrake he’s silent and obedient as a snail his bald pate bowing into the cape’s trail and dreaming of tales he’ll bore me with his one night home once a month that’s what I get like clockwork and always on the full moon half my allowance he reserves for sheets, tearing them with his teeth to vent the forced silence of those other twenty-odd days did I say odd it’s that one day that’s odd his coming home full of half-tricks he’s picked up from the master the hypnotic hunger he so willingly tries on me he claims he stole me, bought me claims he’s Zulu, Bantu, Beja depending on the hour, day, or year says I was the black spot in the white of his eye the speck he turned into leopard that unwittingly turned into woman neither of us no longer knows what’s real and my mother beats her fat tongue against her gums as each month I try to reveal the puzzle stroking the lines from his hairless obsidian crown I hear her rumbling around in the next room I soothe his sweet head and she moans heaven protect us from all the things to which we can become accustomed