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The five
kings count the dead but do not soften
The crusted wound nor stroke the brow;
A hand rules pity as a hand rules heaven;
Hands have no tears to flow.
~D. Thomas
The young boy awoke around
seven
Awoke on a wintry day in 1957
To a strange sensation unlike any
Unlike any he had ever experienced
His eyes were bandaged
He felt pain he could not explain
But it was not that though
It was not the sly stabs that crept inward
from the backs of his eyes
going through the damaged nerves
and spitting out little bullets into his brain
It was however an innate slithering chill
A chill that made his body cover with goose bumps
The young boy's mother watched
Watched outside the finger marked
window of the maternity ward
Which months before had switched floors with pediatrics
Switched so it would be on a lower part of the building
Unfortunately
the money had run out
and some things had yet to be altered
So for now
Children like her son
Children like her son sat like babies
being observed from the outside
The chills got stronger
And the young boy felt a stirring sadness
Worse than the loneliness, he had felt before
Before being taken away from the securities he had known
the securities he had relied on
Relied on over the first five years of his life
Though blinded by cloth
he knew that familiarity lingered near
Near him
And reached his hands out
Out towards the glass
As tears began to flow
the mother grew incredibly uneasy
For she had felt helpless as he since the procedure
But the doctors had explained over
and over
and over
and over again
The necessity
The necessity for estranging the boy and his mother
which they knew would be detrimental
Detrimental to the recovery of the young boy's sight
Detrimental particularly if he cried
The boy howled out
Little blurbs of fragmented pleas
The mother wanted to break the glass
Break the glass and hold her son
Take him home
Take him home and never leave him again
As the cries grew louder
bouncing off the finger marked glass guard
the nurses ran into the room
the mother disappeared out of sight
the boy's chills slowly ran away
Snow flowed into the streets
She ran to the bus
She got on
She thought about what kind of a woman
what kind of a woman would leave her son in the hospital
leave him crying to be held
to be nurtured
On the bus, a woman held tightly her purse
A greased ruffian watched the nurses hustling past the windows
A man read the paper
A paper with an article about a colored man
A colored man who had been forced to jump
Jump into the Alabama River by the Ku Klux Klan
The mother would associate this moment
This moment with the emotional loss of her son
she thought about Willie Edwards
she thought about the nearest bridge
She thought about her son lying there
Her hands they shook
They shook each day
as the wound opened each day
Every afternoon she would sneak into the basement
Drinking gin gimlets
Drinking gin gimlets and smoking
Smoking and crying for her son
Meanwhile at the hospital, the young boy fell asleep
yearning for the warmth of home
The only thing he ever knew
The only thing he wanted back
Barely six years of age
He knew he would go blindly through life
Blindly for the touch of his mother's love
Love which somehow
Somehow, he knew would never come again
Years later
He thought about this moment
He thought about his life as the sun went in and out
In and out of the clouds
In and out as it slowly faded
Slowly faded away
He thought
Thought amongst the rumble of Boston's traffic below
Suddenly there was a small sensation
A sensation that began in his toes
and slowly made it's way up the curving calves of his legs
snaking around his groin
sucking at his lungs
and numbing his brain
He always had feared death
Feared death
For he had longed for it
He had longed for it
And now it had come
He looked at a painting on the wall
with a reflection of a man at a sink
A man at a sink at night
A man at a sink that had always reminded him of gentler father
A gentler father than his own
He looked at a black and white photo
In a frame of unfit size
Hooked on his children's eyes
and fell over onto the cold concrete tiles
naked
The same way he had come in
on the breeziest fall day of Mantle's rookie season
His mother could not hold him on that day
And when she brought him back home
it continued into October
Then one day
One day after her husband ate two eggs
After her husband had a slice of bread with jam
Four pieces of bacon
And after her husband had had two cups of coffee
She realized that she had made the same breakfast
The same breakfast for nearly a decade
Packed her few possessions and left
Left for anywhere
Left for anywhere but there
Six years later, he would remember the first strike
Six years later it would be
it would be a wound up blow to his head
A wound up blow that nearly left him lifeless
He awoke in a white room
all too familiar to that one
To the same eyes, he had seen when he thought he was leaving
Leaving with his black and white children piercing through him
He went to speak and nothing came out
He went to speak and didn't know what to make of it
Questions flew past him at an unanswerable pace
Had he died?
Was death the same as life?
No-
No-
No-
It couldn't be
Still demise was nearing
He sensed the confusion
The confusion in the blemished reddened eyes
of his children
The glowing light
The glowing light that seemed to be cutting
Cutting right into their faces
It showed the gleam of melancholy
His daughter looked at him
Looked at him with her big brown eyes
Puppy like
And he felt guilt
He had never given her what she had deserved
A correlation he had realized
Realized after some time stemmed from his mother
A correlation he never once talked about
Rather swept it under the rug
Like dust
Except behind closed doors
Swept it under the rug
Swept it under the people
The people whom never could help
His son awkward in most moments
seemed for once
for once noble
Standing large
His arm gingerly walking up and down his sister's back
The only thing he knew to do
The only thing he knew to do in time of peril
The doctor hurriedly entered the room
His only children were swept away
Swept away as a team of nurses followed
again the mind numbing pain appeared
He closed his eyes
He closed his eyes and for the first time
For the first time he wanted to live
He wanted to touch the newborn skin of his first grandchild
He wanted to walk the dog until his feet got tired
He wanted to watch a film that never ended
He wanted to go to a jazz club that never closed
He wanted all those dreams
All those dreams
Dreams he had had once
Had had, but never came to be
Never came to be
Never would come to be…
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