yOunger than some

When I was young, I thought the purpose was
to learn how to walk making no sound,
leaving no footprints, no marks ever
you were there

I thought the purpose was,
to be the best player in the game
you had to hide so good you'd never
be found, no matter how hard anyone
looked, or called — they lied,
they cheated, they wanted to win
the easy way; I knew how to win
so good no one wanted to play.
One time I tied a friend up so
ingeniously he almost died
rather than escape. I loved
throwing my all into something
where if you lost, you tried again;
but if you won, you never needed to
doubt.

I never understood
why there was cheating.
If you didn't like the rules,
just don't play.
And trying to win
took all the fun
away.
I liked playing;
not trying.

Games
I never played: you name it.
Games
seemed to be for
when you were bored, too lazy
to play without rules.
If I had to play, I resisted
playing to win.
I liked being surprised I
won.

"You did it on purpose!"


"What is the purpose ...?"


therefore, On Purpose ...


Arriving late to school
getting tardy slips every rainy day
taking so long to walk to school
saving worms
soft question marks on the sidewalks.

at 4
Burying a cigarette
as a gift to God
graves were where
people went to be
with God
after all, kites
got messages sent
up strings
a cigarette
after all, grownups seemed
to really like them,
sighing, lips pursed
smoke a thin dance of air

at 3
Remembering my first strange word:
vacuum
walking by a neighbor's house,
hearing the wailing whine —
the comfort of finally
having a definition. We
didn't have one.

at 9
getting an award
for helping compose
what became our school song,
the line "raincloud purple."

then a few years later,
earnest but memory failing already
helping a teacher write the words
down to a favorite song
and learning too late
that I'd made almost all
of them up.

first paid job
writing: a fiction serial
for our elementary school
mimeo newspaper, my own
words shaped by that
exquisite sharp smell.

at 4
creating The Bug Club
for all my friends
2- and 6-legged.
Even some 8.
And one-
footed snails.

Raising butterflies, cocoon stunned
crumpled beauty emerging
the breathless reward of flight,
cricket frogs from tadpoles
singing in my bedroom, hopping
up hallways to startle my parents
stumbling to bed,
my awakening to shouts

sitting out rainstorms
under the boughs of eucalyptus
forest menthol fragrant,
sometimes finding nest
eggs of feral chickens,
always abandoned, a
deserted still life

at 13
creating a detective agency
to justify my curiosity
validate my finding out

riding my bike to churches,
synagogues, cathedral
people staring, an interloper
eavesdropping but really
listening for someone talking
to God

at 8
loving to read aphorisms
the Maxims of La Rochefoucauld
realizing they, finally, could teach
how to live, the answers
contained within their wit
the first stirrings
of wisdom


realizing that the only people
I could talk to
were dead, alive only
in books


talking with bullies
talking them out of fights
with me, distracting them,
yes, but finding myself
loving the answers they gave
and the fragile friendship
that rarely lasted
the egging on of their
friends

Living afraid days
the raised voice, raised
hand, belt. Keeping record
but never knowing a day
without punishment, harsh
words. More trouble than
I was worth, for sure,
more than my parents
could understand, but
always forstalling
trouble became my motto

I never "got it"
Refusing to do homework
repetitive drudgery
of what you already knew
last thing on my mind
teach me something new
but don't waste my time

But yet the pain
the pain
the inevitable "teaching"
punishment
of being twisted to fit
the holes, crammed
and confused as everyone else
when the pain didn't work,
when I still didn't care
about work that didn't matter
to me. I only wanted
to learn ...

One of the things I never got
was how punishment taught,
one thing I never learned.
One line I never bought.
****