The 1980s
Shove your hands in your shorts.
Examining the corridors,
remark on the rainfall — and the lack —
cunningly detached.
Examining the corridor’s
fluorescence
cunningly, detached,
think of release;
fluorescence.
Slip into the Boy’s Room.
Think of release —
keep your eyes on the trough.
Slip into the Boy’s Room.
As if you could,
keep your eyes on the trough;
wash your hands. Disinfect.
As if you could.
Try hard to ignore your teammates;
wash your hands. Disinfect?
The 1980s are almost over.
Try harder. To ignore your teammates,
shove your hands in your shorts —
they will implicate you.
Remark on the rainfall, and the lack.
* * * * * * * *
Long Beach
Ralph W. Mann, 1909-1982
Was it one,
was it two
families
he had walked
out on before
the affair
with my grandmother,
Ora?
Lies
no one knew.
No one talked.
His father,
William,
sheriff and engineer,
was a semi-pro
failure
with the San Pedro
Pilots,
where he played
with the great,
hated
Babe Ruth.
William
banned
his son
from sport —
punishment
of a sort.
Grandpa
dropped
out of USC,
with his friend
Marion Morrison,
for baseball.
William
pointed
a Remington
at him,
the shortened
barrel.
Grandpa’s Mexican
mother
in the background,
never mentioned.
His pitching arm
was just shy
of enough.
But he was strong;
this was Long
Beach:
he worked
his way up
to supervisor
of Crescent Warf
and Warehouse.
There were three
types of men:
loaders
as the pallet
came in,
jitney drivers,
and the guys
who played cards
and pulled the boards
out from under
the crane.
He didn’t go
to WWII:
he ran the docks.
Tick, tock.
At a strike,
union men
on his left
and right
got shot.
The higher-ups
looking down.
He retired
as supervisor,
nowhere to go.
Enraged
at change,
alcoholic,
with a pension
for life.
Not to mention
a wife
to overlook.
In 1975,
the Shah
brought
him to Iran
to organize a port.
He felt
half-alive.
He thought
like an engineer —
better than one —
but wasn’t paid
like an engineer,
which benefited everyone
but him. No one.
He barely made it
out, before
the Revolution.
A few coins,
the dictator
in his pocket.
He showed me
on a visit.
He spent
his last years
as a volunteer
umpire,
youth baseball.
Behind a mask.
Ask
what he meant.
Dying horribly
of esophageal
cancer,
in Long Beach.
* * * * * * * *
American Poetry
As if
at a urinal,
focus.
But look
both ways
before
you cross
your streams.
In dreams.
Repeat
your
reflection
like a pop
song,
a bloodless
erection.
Or
rejection.
Stir
comparisons —
cocktails
of damage,
ambition.
Grovel.
The devil
in the details,
your image.
Handshakes;
tax
breaks,
or line.
Limp
facts.
Your pimp,
a public
moan.
No embarrassment,
a bloated
bio
or acknowledgment
page —
the list,
careerist
thank you,
your gauge.
Mister
Malaprop,
hand
on your book,
and
on your ass,
will look
you in the eyes,
accustomize.
In the indifferent
corner,
your map;
your dunce-
cap
correspondence:
three zs,
like a laugh,
or sleep.
The headlong
performance,
quivering
voice,
a loving
unpunctuated
self,
five minutes
since.
Type
control-C,
control-V,
and the sea.
Bend on trend.
What’s my type,
you say.
Your boyfriend.
End.