by Gerard Grealish

Escarpment Trail
for Brenna

Had I not forgotten exactly
what it meant we would have
hiked a different course back the same
we took to North Lookout where
we’d seen hawk and vulture
glide in the easterly winds off
Ridge Overlook and the River of Rocks.

But the city inside me paled
against her seven-year-old insistence:
Don’t you want to know
what an “escarpment” is?

Were she not so stubborn
neither of us would be
clambering over these endless
boulders crevices sloping
toward an abyss the red paint
splotches marking a rocky trail
like blood.

Halfway back she pauses.
The distance from one rock
to another outreaches her arm.  She’s
scared as I hold out
the hand she grabs

stronger and surer
than a moment later when I
will fall an old man
she cannot lift the one her father put
his trust in for whom
she hopes love has powers
beyond itself.

by Gerard Grealish

With the clock running down
the guard drove to the basket.

Before the ref ’s whistle stopped
shrieking Foul! my brother shouted What
the fuck’s the matter with you?

It was a bad call
but the man seated three rows ahead
turned to yell Will you
please watch your mouth? as if
from inside the wheelchair’s pouch my brother
could pull out a mirror
to practice ventriloquism

as if he could ignore
the temper that bristled at injustice that even long ago
cried out inconsolably from his crib
till he was nursed.

Fuck you! he fired back.
This piece of shit
knew nothing about feeling nothing
below his chest about a car tumbling
out of control about desire
without the wherewithal.

At game’s end had he not
seen the small boy
holding the man’s hand my brother’s
eyes might not have been
downcast as he wheeled toward the exits

his Sorry! lost in the language of the dispersing crowd.

by Roger Bernard Smith

you’ve heard this story a dozen times
her arms above her head
elbows at her side
a trick with her backside tucked into the box
on a stainless steel table measured for a smaller person
then some accomplice asked
are you comfortable
no but I can make you laugh about jesus in the endzone
I’m touchdown jesus
running a pick ’n roll along 66^th st
woooshe past a new jersey fruit stand on second ave
near the 59^th st bridge where the story seeps out
from the bench I hear birds on the pavement
pigeons and sparrows picking spilled grain
in the heart of the city you can no longer see

by Roger Bernard Smith

she ran a foam gun in the modular home plant
friday nights we jitterbugged at gleason’s on forest ave
before they converted the asylum into condos
try to tell me you can’t remember it was the champs’ tequila
I danced on what your mother told you not to do
there were gutturals from the booths
a frustration of tool belts without Philips-head screwdrivers
when you needed them most
I’m a farm boy whose pigs were slaughtered
for the brick school lunch line
and you my dear
were a laugh a minute
until you cried