Returning home to escape my past
I am startled to find that... nothing has changed.

Looking through the innocent eyes of my
inner-child
reflecting on long buried memories
sun in my face casting exaggerated
shadows
I wipe the melancholy from my cheek
nodding along to the incessant bassline of
community
as salsa and reggae beats tumble down from
fourth-floor window
speakers
battling hip-hop beats throbbing from
the trunks of parked cars.

I can see the manhole cover that doubled as home
plate for spring and
summer
stick ball games...

Youthful sweat dripped as small hands
clenched an old broomstick
partially wrapped in sticky black
electric tape.
Waiting for the pitch..... my cousin Junior
cheers me on from second base
the next manhole cover up the block
and I swing wildly... the smack of ball against stick ringing in my ears
as I put the pink Spalding on the roof of the
five-story
building
across the street
where my best friend lived until his family
moved.....cross town
to Tracy Towers.... a world away.

"FOUL!"

I yelled and missed the next pitch
swinging wildly again.

"Strike three!" someone yelled

and I stomped on the manhole cover that
doubled as the goal line for
autumn
and winter games of two-hand touch where the
Hail-Mary was the most
popular
play and glory lay in having the most interceptions.

I was always better at catching the
passes not meant for me
and I was never much of a
quarterback
except for the time Sean and I got
into that fight (one of many)
and I launched his sneaker clear across the street

because he was bigger than I was
and fought better than I did

and neither of us were allowed to cross the street so

in the end.... I won
because he crossed anyway.... and his mother beat him for me.

At the memory... a reluctant smile crosses
tightened lips resting above my
chin
still bearing the scar from a face-to-face with the
manhole cover
all the way up the block
that doubled as a reminder of how young my father was
when I was growing up
when he had three of us on his ten-speed
flying down the hill around the corner
him on the seat
Junior on that cross-piece that dips on a girl's bike
and me on the handlebars
navigating
never seeing that beer can
in the street
even after we hit it
flying through the air like some dysfunctional
acrobatic family...Junior was temporarily blinded in one eye.

My father had amnesia and.... sometimes
I suspect that he never fully recovered.
I got thirteen stitches and an everlasting respect
for manhole covers
not
unlike the one I find myself staring at now with an
inexplicable
fondness
trying to ignore the two fifteen year-old girls
walking by

baby carriages ahead of them
futures behind them
and the world resting on their immature shoulders.

Upon returning home..... seeking to relive my past
I am startled to find that nothing has changed
except for me.

Looking through eyes whose innocence
was lost long ago
my inner-child reflects on long-buried memories
locking them away for safe-keeping
ignoring the melancholy as it runs
down my cheek

and crashes to the ground below.