Into my Face

Gone by 5
I sometimes confuse
photographs with memories.

I remember trips to the Richmond Mall
with that blue leash my mom
used to use. But you never feared.
Never used the leash. And I never left
your vision. Ran around
like a bug you said smiling to my father.

I remember my dad sneaking me
in for visiting hours, because the rules
said I was too young. I cried when
we had to leave. My mom made a fuss.
Told me to shush. Thought we were
going to get caught.

I remember sitting on your lap while you ate
saltine crackers in fresh tomato soup
because you couldn’t swallow
whole food. I thought they sent you
home because you were getting better, but
the cancer took you one week later.

When my other grandfather
would miss a little league game,
my father would tell me
how you would’ve been there.
This was to make me feel
better. I felt more loss.

My father never learned Italian because
you only spoke English around the family.
Said that your children were born Americans,
and should sound like Americans. You didn’t
want your kids to get ridiculed
like you did – dago, wop, greasy fuck. You

gave them Anglo Saxon
first names, like William and Lauren.
Changed your first name
to Karl (Marx? ) when you jumped ship
at the Baltimore harbor, running from
fascist Mussolini.

By the time you were 26, you had traveled
across the Atlantic twice, been throughout
Europe and the near East while
working for the merchant
marines. I’ve got your travel
gene.

I hate cigarettes, even as I’m smoking
them. I blame them. I blame them because
I can’t bring myself to hold you accountable
for leaving me. You’d think I would have learned
that cigarettes smoke you. You don’t smoke them.
I should never have started.

When I can’t tell the difference between
photographs and memories, I stand
arms-length from reflective glass, where
I can see my father, and gaze deep into
my face, past his nose and blue eyes
and there’s your smile smiling back at me.

- Brad Bisio

(featured in the poetry forum 08.18.09)

Niagara

What do you think I am, some sort
of derelict? (as if being jobless or homeless
had anything to do with a lack of intelligence)
he said through clenched teeth to control
the volume of his anger as we walked past
the wax museum after eating egg fu yung,
and I rolled my 8 year old eyes and corrected
him because he mispronounced the name of the
restaurant – which is understandable, not knowing
the language and all – but I had noticed a pattern
of him doing this with English words too.
I was certainly guilty of being a know-it-all
and a brat; I wanted attention from the man,
a soundless shadow as distant as the unreachable horizon.

We were watching the news one night 2
years ago, and I noticed something that I had recently
read from some internet article about journalism
because I thought I might want to be a writer
when I grew up. I said that the reporter wasn’t
reporting, that reporting meant, to the best of your
ability, sticking to the facts, keeping opinions to yourself.
I thought I had made a good point,
thought that maybe I could impress him,
but as usual, he didn’t say a word. Now at 15,
still drowning in his silence like a lost sea turtle
who crawled solo through thick sand to the indifferent
Pacific with a 5% chance of survival
and bucked the odds.

We’re here in Canada again, just finished eating
Chinese, and I’m standing on the wrong side
of the protective black metal rail, my full belly
like a concrete block pulling my mind
through the lit falls
as Niagara descends
into the abyss of night.

- Brad Bisio

(added 08.18.09)

Limes

Walking past citrus
produce at the
farmer’s market
Nancy stopped,
sniffed a lime.

“Limes remind me
of corner-
store gin,” I said, “and
that night in the
parking lot at
the Gas for Less
next to the mall
when I pissed
on a white hood(ed)
Toyota Camry.

Woke up
12 hours later
in the ravine
off 65th
with my trousers
ripped
from the crotch
to the knee,
a crusty gash
under my chin.

That was the last
time I drank.”
It ranks as one
of my top 5 regrettables.
When Nancy
didn’t return my calls,
sharing it with her
made the list.
I should’ve waited
for the 2nd date.

- Brad Bisio

(added 08.18.09)