Читать книгу The Underground Man - Jasen Sousa - Страница 3

I placed my ear on the concrete in a park over a spot

where I lost a lot of blood as a 6-year-old. I closed my eyes

and attempted to find the sounds of a different Somerville

hidden somewhere underneath layers of heart shaped chalk dust.

A tennis ball

makes contact with a broomstick

I turned into a bat.

A tire swing

sounds like an old ship leaving the harbor

every time someone swung it around.

A fireman’s wheel

at the top of a wooden structure

that could take you to anywhere you wanted to travel.

An orange box

in the summer opened by a recreation leader

that contained a treasure of games and fun.

A basketball

that makes a magical sound falling

through a metal single rim.

Skateboards, bicycles, and scooters

that should have been an introduction

to the traffic of adulthood.

The sunset

above me that sank behind houses on Lexington Avenue.

The streetlights

letting me know that an older group of kids

would be coming to the park for a different type of enjoyment.

As I removed my ear from my youth

I yearned for it to be as simple as walking across the street

and playing a game. A childhood I almost forgot

because of the drugs and death

that wrapped themselves around my friends

like the coldest night of their lives.