Photograph by Amy Hart
Mr. B named our club after our U-shaped street
and no one dared question this neighbor for naming us yokels –
Korean War vet who smoked Luckies and who demanded
I deliver his morning paper by five-thirty,
scout leader who built a fort for us from leftover plywood and shingles
and painted Ox Yoke Yokels in Marine Corps scarlet on the front.
He tore a page from a spiral notebook for us to sign our names,
crooked representations of our dormant, adult selves,
our right hands raised, pledging allegiance to each other.
We never conceived that, within a year, Mr. B would die
or that a storm would blow through the following winter
and bend the fort to one side, our club without a leader or home.
After the snow had cleared, my father walked up to the fort
the way he would approach an open casket at a wake, hands on his hips,
shaking his head slowly at something that had gone too soon.
He pulled up his sleeves as if the only work left to do was press
his calloused hands against one wall and push until it was as flat
as a sheet, doing what nature would have done on its own,
giving the ground what it seemed to want all along,
as if it would take everything, eventually.
I remember my father saying it
when he spilled coffee in the car,
the driver in front of him braking
suddenly just as he was taking a sip,
hot coffee cresting over the rim
of his ceramic mug, burning his hands
and probably his thighs too.
Coffee so strong he called it battery acid,
said it would put hair on your chest.
Coffee so dark that it blended into the pavement
as he cracked open the door to empty some
onto the road at the next stoplight,
the echo of his euphemism escaping
from the cabin of our Oldsmobile Omega.
It was nothing like shit,
which was harsh and odorous,
though perhaps justifiable
and more satisfying to emit –
the hard T at the end
as if spitting one’s frustration
between tightened lips and gritted teeth.
Sugar, on the other hand, required levity,
restraint, even in the face of the gravest injustice.
Perhaps it was rooted in our Catholic upbringing
that what comes from the mouth
reflects what’s in the heart.
And, if given the choice, wouldn’t my father rather have
a heart of sugar, despite how he refrained
from eating candy and dessert
and would never have the slightest trace
of it in his coffee?
Wouldn’t he rather shout a redemptive curse
to the heavens? Not just over spilled drinks,
but over other daily incidentals –
stubbed toes, lost keys, burned toast.
Lump after lump after lump of sugar,
that sweet, sweet word.
Chris Abbate: I work as a database programmer for clinical drug trials for a company that tests immunotherapies for oncology. I have been in this field for 30 years now, starting just after graduating with a master’s degree in English and realizing that teaching wasn’t the best career fit for me. Looking back, I have had a programmer’s mind since I took two BASIC programming classes in high school. While I couldn’t imagine studying anything other than English in college, I think those classes with Mr. Shugrue really resonated with me. I like precision—in my work and in my poetry. I take both very seriously and I’m on a never-ending quest to improve. My website is chrisabbate.com.