Playing Field
He carried a live ball under his arm, of ghosts
fabricated in a woman’s womb past the second yard
where white posts impaled land run across by many
young men in unstained white sneakers that
any American would recognize.
The bleachers extended past the oceans,
beyond the goal into a part of his throat that hurt,
seeing every man who cheered as each man,
woman and child went down. He would do it again and
again; making the same run even though he knew
he would lose and men watching from the richer part
of the world in the nose-bleed section
would paint their faces in loyalty-colors and
pound their beer-bellies next to women who
made fresh lemonade for them.
At such a distance, he placed another ball
east-facing in a shallow plot already occupied. He
dodged sniper bullets and jeers, bled
grass-colored stains that no ablution would remove. He ran, tripped
over topsoil lumps beside his white-capped countrymen. Their
praying field gone into a meat
grinder famed the overloaded Falluja mausoleums. He
had no room for the next ball. This was his hometown.
Not a soldier, he was the unheralded fifth-round draft choice
after the whole team buckled under,
going crazy by the sidelines.
Space and Laughter
1.
Carbon-monoxide filled their garage. A sister
revved a two-cylinder engine while a brother
squeezed himself inside the few-inch space
between her metal door and the wall. His foot
run over, crushed by the milestone, one of many that
marked a careless disregard, a propensity for cruelty
between a sister and brother. They came from
broken bones, deliberate fires, tacks scattered
face-up in sibling rooms and somehow
as the boulders turned to rocks
turned to pebbles in the distance brought by time
they laughed beyond their punched-out
teeth, curses and air filled helium, nitrous-oxide
turning them idiotically silly
to reminisce of how they nearly died
at the other’s hands. By then his hands had warmed
his gun barrel in the way a rock transfers
heat to a snake. He shoved the barrel
beneath the man’s jaw and pushed
the man’s throat against the wall until
a brother feels like poison and
the man’s eyes turned into red apples, so
the brother can think the man
less than a tree and carves a heart out
with names inside. Next,
to look around for a woman. Eat an eye.
Where is Eve?
2.
Years later, not quite in Eden’s garden,
a brother and sister laughed; a sister- about
what a jerk she was, a brother- about
what an idiot he was and all
the wacko thing they did as death tried
to make them twins. Siblings who lived
always did this. Siblings who died had to wait until
Heaven. Wasn’t everyone a brother or sister, a
gook, haji and nigger (with or without the sand)? Even when the
brother threw away his stunts,
he held onto the distance that a horse
leaping across a ravine,
a flying squirrel lunging to the next tree,
a boy balancing on a log that crosses the black river
can’t make. The measurement of space
between any event and the laughter; a distance
based on collective instinct, but something
he’s unsure of as he looks for it.
3.
A brother needs a place where he can sit
with a man and laugh about what an SOB he is. The man will
laugh at himself too. A brother
could go on living forever after this. He’ll call
the man by his real name, instead of gook, haji or nigger.
When the mirror shows a stranger, they’ll see that they
both fought against a common
anti-other; the person they would turn into.
A brother hopes that heaven really does exist; a place
called Paradise because he needs a hole in the ground
somewhere so he can laugh away all the horrible crap.
And by the time he gets to Paradise, he’ll have
healed by then. And the man- he’ll
want someone to laugh with. By then
it’ll be alright for them
to laugh it off.
[END]
© 2005 Corey Habbas - Contributor's
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