Fountain Street

Excerpt

Part One

Home

Our life was an accident, the flames were conjured by an indifferent couple.

So much time has passed, their union dissipated with the dumb carcass of our home.

This house has been all of our housesÐ our parents colluded with emptiness to conceal this fact.

We live from cairn to cairn, burning refugee hearts, each mistake receding in the rear-view mirror,

each incipient disaster breaking the night like headlights falling on a new city.

Fountain Street

there is a large hand unfolding above me, discreetly

it conceals a black man surrounded by a thin tincture of green like the moon eclipsing the sun

I am to give obeisance to him and his firm brothers lurking in the gardenÐÐ they strip me of my childhood casually with the relative calm of a standard play, the rising action, apex, and dnouementÐÐ

in the formation of sleepwalkers they withdraw silently into the past

commentary:

no one can explain why they came to shape the hidden aquifers of your life, but it is here, on Fountain Street, where you first stepped out of the unseen

cathexis

upstairs, my uncle relived his boyhood, looking from the garret window to the tree he had been tied to and into the corners of the yard where his impulses formed

he drove us to the pond by the frozen reservoirÐÐ my brother became pallid as animals do when divining pain, and we clambered out of the cab toward him

we undressed in a snowbank waiting for him to break the ice— he circled around, motioning to me

I conjoined with his hammer poised over the immutable sheen, though I was only a boy and could barely anticipate the future blows of initiation and affection

commentary:

affection between men has always been circumscribed by pain

here, in the balance between love and brutality lies the origin of sport, the first act of civilization

femme inspiratrice

she waited under the stairs in the basement where I learned to feel and see without the advantages of light

she held me tightly to the ground and I complied with the conspicuous duties she created for me

I drifted to her daily, down the damp steps and found a love in her remorse that I could not find in myself

there she lay in the old air, suspended in the dark webs under the stairs whispering to me when I slept, and pleasing me

the inevitable

a man runs in the rain toward this small house

the window clouds up from his breath even though he is a mile away

his silhouette begins to blot out the moon, beads of water race down the glass

he will exact something from me, I can tell as he slips down the hill, muscles tensed

desire

it begins in childhood with an awkward moment behind the house then shatters outward, exploding into adulthood

here one collects fragments and reconstructs the face of the large boy who touched you but the eyes are always missingÐÐ only the lips remain, directing you downward

infidelity

a large dog fills up the backyard, the children are afraid to leave the house

each night, the dog inhales and exhales, its muscles contract against the walls

the dog's warm breath fills the attic as its teeth push slowly through the ceiling

the room dims, the lining of its black lips slides gradually over the windows

1974

I....