260 Childhood poems

All morning, you’ve studied the laws of spoons, the rules of books, the dynamics of the occasional plate, observed the principles governing objects in motion and objects at rest.  To see if it will fall, and if it does, how far, if it will rage like a lost penny or ring like a Chinese gong—because it doesn’t have to—you lean from your chair and hold your cup over the floor. It curves in your hand, it weighs in your palm, it arches like a wave, it is a dipper full of stars, and you’re the wind timing the pull of the moon, you’re the water measuring the distance from which we fall.

yo chocolate milk for breakfast kid. one leg of your sweatpants rolled up scrounging at the bottom of your mama’s purse for bus fare and gum pen broke and you got ink on your thumb kid what’s good, hot on the cement kid White Castle kid tongue stained purple cussin on the court till your little brother shows up with half a candy bar kid got that good B in science kid you earned it kid etch your name in a tree hug your granny on her birthday think of Alaska when they shootin curled-up dreams of salmon safety tundra the farthest away place you ever saw in a book polar bears your new chess partners pickax in the ice Northern Lights kid keep your notebook where your cousins won’t find it. leave it on my desk if you want shuffle under carbon paper and a stamp that screams late yellow and red to draw the eye from the ocean you keep hidden in a jacked-up five star. your mama thought there was a secret in there thought they would laugh but that ain’t it. it’s that flows and flows and flows and lines like those rip-roaring bits you got bars till the end of time you could rap like helium bout to spring all of it down to you none left in the sun — fuelless while the last light pushes from your belly climbing your ribs and you laugh into the microphone and who is ready for that?

To the same purpose: he, not long before Brought home from nurse, going to the door To do some little thing He must not do within, With wonder cries, As in the skies He saw the moon, “O yonder is the moon, Newly come after me to town, That shined at Lugwardin but yesternight, Where I enjoyed the self-same sight.” As if it had ev’n twenty thousand faces, It shines at once in many places; To all the earth so wide God doth the stars divide, With so much art The moon impart, They serve us all; serve wholly every one As if they servèd him alone. While every single person hath such store, ’Tis want of sense that makes us poor.

1. FIELD Truck a passel (a poke) of wildling boys We call ourselves (our pack) the orphan-slaves

He has transformed his Tonka dump truck into a push mower, using lumber scraps and duct tape to construct a handle on the front end of the dump box. One brave screw holds the makeshift contraption together. All summer they outline the edges of these acres, first Daddy, and then, behind him this small echo, each dodging the same stumps, pausing to slap a mosquito, or rest in the shade, before once again pacing out into the light, where first one, and then the other, leans forward to guide the mowers along the bright edges of this familiar world.

Suppose, my little lady, Your doll should break her head, Could you make it whole by crying Till your eyes and nose are red? And would n’t it be pleasanter To treat it as a joke; And say you ’re glad “’T was Dolly’s And not your head that broke?” Suppose you ’re dressed for walking, And the rain comes pouring down, Will it clear off any sooner Because you scold and frown? And would n’t it be nicer For you to smile than pout, And so make sunshine in the house When there is none without? Suppose your task, my little man, Is very hard to get, Will it make it any easier For you to sit and fret? And would n’t it be wiser Than waiting like a dunce, To go to work in earnest And learn the thing at once? Suppose that some boys have a horse, And some a coach and pair, Will it tire you less while walking To say, “It is n’t fair?” And would n’t it be nobler To keep your temper sweet, And in your heart be thankful You can walk upon your feet? And suppose the world don’t please you, Nor the way some people do, Do you think the whole creation Will be altered just for you? And is n’t it, my boy or girl, The wisest, bravest plan, Whatever comes, or does n’t come, To do the best you can?

I can smell the sweet scent of my own sweat as I blow high with the breeze and swing, I pump my legs like a child again my skinny kid’s butt holds me down, keeps me grounded when adults threaten to pull me off. My chain breaks as I tempt to kiss the sun, my knees have a life of their own bending as if my very existence depended on it, and it does, for I’d rather be a nut flying high over people’s heads than on the ground dying touching the earth, staining the water with my unclean mind, my hands washing red off the money so I can sleep off my power trip and back stabbing toys. I was an old soul at five spouting off about the filth of my generation. I knew greed was the root of all evil, competition in close cousin. I had my doubts about civilization as I found it and convinced my sister Tricia to wear flannel jammies zipped to the throat in the summer to protect us from the babysitter’s bloodsucking husband while our parents went out for supper. July 2, 1998

He clings to her while other boys play Marco Polo. A year of lessons, this is what she gets? She wants to lie in the sun. Enough, she says, loosens her arms, releases him. The boy winces at light bouncing off water. He grasps at her, where he thinks she is, but feels blind. He decides to drown for his mother. Just this morning he breathed only when she breathed, laughed when she laughed. Before he goes under he hears one boy catch another:My eyes were closed! His cries, underwater, make bubbles that rise like loose balloons. He watches his mother’s legs move away. Out of breath, he swims toward empty blue.

How do you like to go up in a swing, Up in the air so blue? Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing Ever a child can do! Up in the air and over the wall, Till I can see so wide, Rivers and trees and cattle and all Over the countryside— Till I look down on the garden green, Down on the roof so brown— Up in the air I go flying again, Up in the air and down!

Pretty soon we’ll have the talk. She’ll ask me where babies come from And I will lie to her: “Babies come from the chance meeting of sperm and egg See the man deposits his sssperm which is like a pudding into the woman’s vvagina and it travels up this tube-y thing and only one of them gets the prize and bing! A cell becomes a fetus becomes baby becomes you. Go do your homework.” She will wait for me to calm down, her eyes patient requiring the truth and I will tell her: “Babies come from Friday nights melted into Saturday mornings; the Isley Brothers and 3 or 4 glasses of white zin; miniskirts and aching zippers; sofa cushions sweaty and ogodthecondombroke ; Babies come from blue lights and e.p.t. tests and the wet spot on clean sheets; Lonely knees that bump beneath the table; love letters sealed with a miss and $758 phone bills; eyeliner and lips to match; muscled Thighs and a sweet, milky quarter of yes in the center of pink panties. You came from this: a separated daddy and a desperate mama; A ripped sonogram and hours spent on hardwood floors asking 
girlfriends: Should I go through with this? Grandma’s washboard and the dust tracks Grandaddy made when he left her with five girls to maim You came from this: Maryland rain, nights of shag carpet lovin’ and days Just $2 short of the rent; And one afternoon you came I wanted your father so badly it hurt Even took his last name and flung it behind yours like a spare tire Whatever he gave me was never enough It was like his love was a sieve And my desire for him Water I was insane Packed my dreams in a U-Haul and moved them to MD Nothing better to do 30 and scared You came from this: Collision of longing Tongue kissing and shame The emptiness at the corner of GA Avenue And the fullness of swollen ankles and readjusted dreams You came from: A poet and a singer Fists and car keys Peach cobbler and gumbo Love And that last dirty fight on the Beltway You came baby You came, here” And she’ll say: “Mama, babies come from peach cobbler?” and I’ll say yes.