That neighborhood lives on in stories we tell, songs we hum
Scent memories: yeasty pizza, toasted bagels (H&H at dawn),
We lived above a Cuban Chinese joint – our noses serenaded every night, pork fat and chilis, Jeff stop in for beans and rice after you score a toke toke on the corner
Espresso so strong you could cop a buzz just passing by the cafe
And the babies
Fancy babies in fancy carriages steered by weathered warhorse nannies
Fussy babies in strollers pushed by au pairs in skinny jeans
That one chill baby, always with both parents – they’d stroll at their own pace, lived just up the block from me
Everyone knew them, we nodded or passed the peace sign in greeting
Then one evening I came home and
my neighbor was dead
shot
and suddenly the dad I saw every day walking with his wife and son became a headline
The personal became universal
He left a legacy of beauty, but in that moment
he just a dad no longer pushing a stroller, our neighbor, John Lennon
(c) 2024 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
True story. I lived half a block from the Dakota in those days, in a run-down hotel called The Park Royal., I played weeknights at the gay bar downstairs. My friend Jeffery French would come by, drunk as a daffy skunk. Eventually, he found the love of his life, Christopher Kennedy, who nursed Jeff at home as he died of AIDS. We lost Chris this week – a 35-year AIDS survivor. More about him to come, but this prompt from What’s Going On? brought so much back to me. Gonna go cry after I post this. Peace, y’all, Amer
Night Bus, NYC
Pummeled by brutal fluorescent light
of the crosstown night bus
All sections crammed, and damn, that
fella giving her the FishEye
won’t give her his seat instead
She leans on a rail, awaiting her stop
on the West Side, where Cuban Chinese is
on the menu – her roomie sets a nice
take-out table with chilled Dos Equis
“Broadway at 86,” robots the loudspeaker
As she bunches her keys blade-out
(you never know on a sweatsullen
Manhattan evening), she feels a grasp
The hand of FishEye Guy clasping her ass
She steps back, grinds the tip of a 5” heel
into his sandal-clad foot ‘til it bleeds
“Oh!” she chirps, “I’m so clumsy”
Time wounds all heels, but
hot-rod pumps do the job in a pinch
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
First, Three Word Wednesday posted a call for these words: Brutal, Grope, and Transfer. Then (much to my delight), Imaginary Garden With Real Toads’ Isadora put this challenge up… “Create a list of three words or phrases specific to the worst job you ever had and craft a poem having nothing to do with work. List the words, write the poem, and take back the power! Make sure to include your list of words or phrases in your post…”
My words were from my hellacious years of waitressing at a Greek restaurant that was actually Greek, run by a guy named Dino who was a sweetie (he called me “Amy the Sing-ger,” with a hard “g”), and all the folks were wonderful, and this was back in my hometown of Binghamton, NY. But waitressing was not my calling. This was before my PTSD diagnosis, so every rush hour I’d break into a sweat, forget orders, and neglect to write down prices, resulting in my being docked. (Yeah, like the Hudsucker Proxy… “Ya forget a price, they DOCK YA!”) I was THE worst waitress in the world… and I really didn’t care!
My waitressing words: Take-out, sections, and bus (as in clear tables). Actually, there was a fourth restaurant reference in there – did anyone catch it? Izy, thanks a bunch. You were right about “taking back the power.” Simply transporting myself to The City, when I was actively singing as well as working at a very cool marketing research place (where I met folks who are still friends today), was the start of heaven.
And yes, this is a true story. I had a bad temper in those days… Peace – and Cuban Chinese on your menu soon, Amy
Sharp Little Pencil 