Trans

Volunteers

Volunteers Out the window, a kid-robin on a branch shows me her size, the same as mama's but fuzzy, an outline and then, turning, her all-over splotches. At the back of the yard, a blighted pine shows a beige fringe in the emerald sumac, they're big feeders, you've got to tend them so everything else stays healthy. That pine's dying from something. A storm? On the radio, a story about customers come to the clinic for maryjane, $40 a dozen for marijuana cookies or $80 an oz. for the best stuff and the police won't close it down because they'd have to cart us off in ambulances! - asnort oflaughter this one with lesions on his arms, thin, and open sores and bruises. Poor guy buys cookies as an appetite stimulator. What would become of him? What will become of me? Dark letters, welcome! What a deal! I'm gonna grab a cup of joe, Java, and a cookie before the gas guys come to cart off the old grill we cooked hamburgs - upstate NYtalk and hotdogs on. Flaky rusted now. Here I am, happy and healthy, tip-tapping along one minute at the time. Eating. Even though I don't believethis mess is worth saving, writing is like digging in clay the sumac plays out of, 47 black letters, the sound of Mom's voice, the crisp edge of Papa's celluloid dresser set: buttonhook, shoehorn, brush, mirror, comb, and what's that odd receptacle with the hole for hair combings? To make jewelry? Papa bald as an egg. He holds me, listening to the radio night after every night, each night a story. I wouldn't lie down without a headphone later after surgery, a novel or poems for the heart. Mama, read to me. Papa, I'm fuzzy, read me a story. Like that. Or on paper. Like this. Tip. Tap. 48 ...