I remember sitting at the top of the stairs
At night
To hear adult secrets from below.
They talked about Polio
And Selma.
“We’ll have to keep his bedroom window closed.”
“Did you hear that sheriff with the sunglasses?”
I remember the iron lung wards,
Like graveyards for the living.
I asked my father if the protestors were crazy.
He said “no.”
I remember they called Sabin a hero,
The March of Dimes moved on.
We moved to an integrated school.
“I’m not colored,” Olonzo told me.  “I’m black.”
I remember mounting tapes on the night shift
With Don.
We played chess when it got quiet.
We joked about playing black and white
Until he got killed.
Now Black Lives Matter
And my mask hangs next to the car keys.

I couldn’t find the car
So, I walked that night
Past tall stone churches,
And trees too big,
And gardens with wizards hiding in the corners.
I shouted in the courtyard of echoes
Was dazzled in the hall of illusions
I walked in bare feet
Through fields of herbs
By secret ponds of golden fish
And looked through the window
At the iron towers
Silhouetted by the blue dawn.
Until they told me
It was time to go.

Do Seagulls have kings?
Someone to settle disputes
Over choice bits
Of floating detritus?
They don’t seem organized,
Balancing on the wind,
And Laughing

We’re allowed to walk
Down by the river
During the Plague
Stepping aside for the others
So they don’t get too close
While the lustful geese
Joust, just like
The middle ages
And the river rolls down to the sea.

On the shore
Of the dark lake,
I awoke,
When someone said
"Hey, Simpson"
Outside my tent.
My name is not Simpson.
The voice spoke again,
Then another, then a chorus
Of "Hey, Simpson".
The next night I awoke
When someone said
"Hey, Edgar"
Outside my tent.
My name is not Edgar.

The young crusader sat
With stern jaw set
On the old pink couch
That was all they could afford
With her dark gentle head
On his lap
And watched Jack Benny
Before her trip
To the doctor.

The boys were throwing poles
Like spears
To see who was the mightiest
I threw a pole too.
Even little John Dinky
That twit
Threw his pole
Farther than mine
And that has made
All the difference.