way and that
The mohel arrived at my parents’ apartment
With a little black suitcase of instruments
It was barbaric but it was our barbarism
At the American Academy in Rome
Our friends threw a black-and-white party
Like Truman Capote he wore black and white booties
There were
Welcome Gabriel
signs in the rafters
The classicists drank gallons of red wine
And hoisted him up like a trophy
Gelsa the Italian nanny overdressed him
And took him all over Trastevere he was known
At the butcher shops the dry cleaners the coffee bars
He had become the unofficial mayor
Of the neighborhood waving from his stroller
At shopkeepers who waved and shouted
Ciao Gabriele
When he learned to crawl he pulled himself
Forward on his arms a little at a time
As if he were climbing Arizona Beach on D-day
We strapped him into the car seat
And drove around for hours
Trying to get him to sleep
There were other parents nodding
To each other on the road I remember steering
Clear of the trucks veering down Highway 59
Give him a wing and a propeller
And he’ll launch
I joked
When he hurled himself out of his crib
It was no joke when he twitched
And twisted in his sleep we marveled
That he never stopped moving
I can make out a man pushing a stroller
Through Rice Village on Sunday morning
Dew on the grass mist on the windows
The moon a crescent in a children’s book
The streets vacant the parking lots empty
Everyone in the city slept but us
Why all the tears
Oh blow Gabriel blow
Go on and blow Gabriel blow
At the diner we set him up in a high chair
Where the little pasha shrieked
And littered the floor below
While Little Richard mimicked a drum intro
From the speakers above
A-wop-bop-a-loo-bop-a-lop-bop-bop
In the end it becomes a blur
Oh blow Gabriel blow
Go on and blow Gabriel blow
Issa recalled how a young priest
Slipped crossing a bridge
And fell into the torrents of a river
People searched with lighted torches
Until they found him wedged between rocks
And carried him home on a litter
His parents wept they wept bitterly
In front of everyone and even the old priests
Cried until their sleeves were soaked in tears
When the boy was cremated two days later
Issa tossed flowers into the flames
And watched them seeping into the sky
He lost three baby boys in infancy
He named his daughter Sato
Hoping she would grow in wisdom
She was pure moonlight beaming
From head to foot a butterfly
Resting her wings on a sprig of grass
He believed his two-year-old flitted
In a special state of grace
With divine protection from Buddha
But he was wrong he could not bear
To see her body swollen with blisters
In the clutches of the vile god of smallpox
His wife cried at her death he did not
He tried to escape he could not
Cut the binding cord of human love
The world of dew
Is the world of dew
And yet and yet
I pulled to the side of the road
When he announced that we bought him
From a special baby store
He came home from preschool
And opened the refrigerator
Where’s my fucking milk
It was not his birthday
But he kept blowing out the candles
On his cousin’s cake
He wheeled his tricycle up and down
In front of the house in a rage
You’re not my parents
Sometimes Gabriel and our dog raced
Back and forth across the museum lawn
Until Rocky got tired out
Curators paused to watch him run
With so much energy he was like a wound top
He could almost fly a kite when there was no wind
In those days we did not have leashes
Or ropes for our children in airports
We skipped along behind them
No runway or landing pad
No nursery or laboratory
No public or private school
Would ever be able to hold him
It was like giving a tropical storm
Some time out on land
It was as if a TV show ran constantly
In his mind the innocent kid
Kept breaking out of prison
He was a little Bartleby
Of the nursery he despised kindergarten
And preferred not to
He clung to the couch he held fast
To the chair we
The mohel arrived at my parents’ apartment
With a little black suitcase of instruments
It was barbaric but it was our barbarism
At the American Academy in Rome
Our friends threw a black-and-white party
Like Truman Capote he wore black and white booties
There were
Welcome Gabriel
signs in the rafters
The classicists drank gallons of red wine
And hoisted him up like a trophy
Gelsa the Italian nanny overdressed him
And took him all over Trastevere he was known
At the butcher shops the dry cleaners the coffee bars
He had become the unofficial mayor
Of the neighborhood waving from his stroller
At shopkeepers who waved and shouted
Ciao Gabriele
When he learned to crawl he pulled himself
Forward on his arms a little at a time
As if he were climbing Arizona Beach on D-day
We strapped him into the car seat
And drove around for hours
Trying to get him to sleep
There were other parents nodding
To each other on the road I remember steering
Clear of the trucks veering down Highway 59
Give him a wing and a propeller
And he’ll launch
I joked
When he hurled himself out of his crib
It was no joke when he twitched
And twisted in his sleep we marveled
That he never stopped moving
I can make out a man pushing a stroller
Through Rice Village on Sunday morning
Dew on the grass mist on the windows
The moon a crescent in a children’s book
The streets vacant the parking lots empty
Everyone in the city slept but us
Why all the tears
Oh blow Gabriel blow
Go on and blow Gabriel blow
At the diner we set him up in a high chair
Where the little pasha shrieked
And littered the floor below
While Little Richard mimicked a drum intro
From the speakers above
A-wop-bop-a-loo-bop-a-lop-bop-bop
In the end it becomes a blur
Oh blow Gabriel blow
Go on and blow Gabriel blow
Issa recalled how a young priest
Slipped crossing a bridge
And fell into the torrents of a river
People searched with lighted torches
Until they found him wedged between rocks
And carried him home on a litter
His parents wept they wept bitterly
In front of everyone and even the old priests
Cried until their sleeves were soaked in tears
When the boy was cremated two days later
Issa tossed flowers into the flames
And watched them seeping into the sky
He lost three baby boys in infancy
He named his daughter Sato
Hoping she would grow in wisdom
She was pure moonlight beaming
From head to foot a butterfly
Resting her wings on a sprig of grass
He believed his two-year-old flitted
In a special state of grace
With divine protection from Buddha
But he was wrong he could not bear
To see her body swollen with blisters
In the clutches of the vile god of smallpox
His wife cried at her death he did not
He tried to escape he could not
Cut the binding cord of human love
The world of dew
Is the world of dew
And yet and yet
I pulled to the side of the road
When he announced that we bought him
From a special baby store
He came home from preschool
And opened the refrigerator
Where’s my fucking milk
It was not his birthday
But he kept blowing out the candles
On his cousin’s cake
He wheeled his tricycle up and down
In front of the house in a rage
You’re not my parents
Sometimes Gabriel and our dog raced
Back and forth across the museum lawn
Until Rocky got tired out
Curators paused to watch him run
With so much energy he was like a wound top
He could almost fly a kite when there was no wind
In those days we did not have leashes
Or ropes for our children in airports
We skipped along behind them
No runway or landing pad
No nursery or laboratory
No public or private school
Would ever be able to hold him
It was like giving a tropical storm
Some time out on land
It was as if a TV show ran constantly
In his mind the innocent kid
Kept breaking out of prison
He was a little Bartleby
Of the nursery he despised kindergarten
And preferred not to
He clung to the couch he held fast
To the chair we
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