In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

  • Brooklyn Walk-Up
  • Michael Waters (bio)

Too often my mother told the storyOf bundling me into the red snowsuit,Leaving me scarved & ear-flapped,Zippered to the chin, baby-bootiedUpon the quilted bedWhile she wrestled the carriageSix flights down our tenement stepsOnly to return to a locked door,The key nestled in the handbagDangling from the inside hook.A cry like no other rose inside her.She rushed again down crooked stairsOut onto Covert Street,Past the deli & funeral parlor,All the way around the cornerTo the Irving Avenue alleyWhere she grasped then climbed—This new mother—The fire escape ladderRung by icy rungTo reach the metal landing, thenClanged upward floor by floor until,Crouched upon the uppermost grate,She could see the swollen,Immobile, doll-shaped pile.She raised the unclasped window,Gathered me, grabbed her bag, descendedOnce more the six floors to the cold carriage,Then raced to the Dekalb Avenue BMTTo meet my father home from work.Wheeled madly, I slept like a bobbing cork.She never told him how she'd shut me in,How she'd gazed through glassAt the clump of cloth, [End Page 1] The breathing heap of wool & cottonFor which she'd leapt beyond her measure.Motherhood had turned uncommon.Years later she took such pleasureIn repeating the story, that boySwathed like an Andean childSacrificed on the mountain peak,Mummified by the dry, glacial winds,Never to name his executioner,That boy her favorite version of me. [End Page 2]

Michael Waters

MICHAEL WATERS's recent books include Caw (BOA Editions, 2020), The Dean of Discipline (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2018), and the coedited anthology, Border Lines (Knopf, 2020). Recipient of five Pushcart Prizes and Guggenheim, NEA, Fulbright, and NJ State Council on the Arts fellowships, Waters lives without a cell phone in Ocean, NJ.

...

pdf

Share