HAVE YOU EVER WALKED A PRIMROSE PATH?

HAVE YOU EVER WALKED A PRIMROSE PATH?


Three fifty foot lots seemed far, so distant
to a five year old. A five year old; gentle
meekness of a child, innocent yet filled with
fear - which lasted through the years.

A child tolerates what is learned, gives
permission - to elders – although a candy
man reacts to frayed arteries on a Primrose
Path; giddiness, twitching, twisting a
common leaf then ripping it to shreds.

Misbehavior, common to the onlooker –
perhaps today labeled attention deficit
disorder – some mental block – or far too
shy – or far too friendly - a child smiles.
A child knows the arteries to Primrose Path.

Loose stones are kicked, heads look down,
and the smile gone - for awhile. The distance
a child walks pollinates a vine, layering
failure – as a path brightens in a new lip of
daylight.

One day a child full of grace, this tiny
angel – wings carry the child above the
wickedness of wrongdoers – when simple
wings were observed as naughtiness
inside – full of sin – inside - anger builds
as a child walks a Primrose Path.

Children learn to behave and do as one is
told, even if words string webs where one
is trapped by personal damage – unlike
thorns on bushes.

An angel has no capacity to tell or ability
to convince, unskilled talent; a child
remains inside a capsule, a personal
space where words are muffled - then
heard as whining –



Blind dishonesty becomes a way of life
clouded by destruction but to one so
young what is destruction but a broken
toy – or ice cream falling from a cone: so,
the silencer still reins. . .

Why didn’t a child run on Primrose Path?

The silencer to a child is a clown; a
round face, one who smiles, cheers
and praises those whom play his game.
A false affection, unknown to a five year
old who believes in clowns and grins.

At the end of Primrose Path the silencer
waits, an opened door, peacock feathers
on a wooden floor – hallucination will
play tricks – and everyone is watching
calling out your name.

The lady only next door, close to a clown
known to have mental problems, and
her only daughter killed crossing her
Primrose Path.

All around children fear the lady on the
porch who rocks back and forth, hands
out popcorn, laughs, and calls your
name to come and sit for awhile. All the
time the evil lurked next door.

Next door where new gifts are given –
and no one hears a whimper, and tears
dissolve - what was that? A child thinks.

Another time – a story stale, and those
living near Primrose Path love to watch
a belly jiggle, when someone laughs.

The poor, and needy, accept wrong
doers, denying any claims as false –
as the silencer inside stone walls
wallowing in personal wealth, steals
more than money, more than pride.



His soul sold to the devil before his
life became a pre historic charge
plate, his commission, offers of
penny candy to a child.

Proprietors knew the cost of being
poor, and so they learned to be
in business for themselves, a child
for collateral.

No window shopping on this path,
no neighbor would betray a friend
one trusted – no neighbor knew
about the piles of wooden boxes
where a silencer played.

No laws protected children from illegal
operations - a child stealer working
his own rackets - bargaining with a
child’s mind. His assault became his
sexual possession.

No one talked about the end of
Primrose Path, or believed any
child should walk with fear – too near
to be a prisoner: he hands out a
popsicle, or a stick of gum.

Those who walked the Primrose
Path left names etched on a brick
façade. Those who played on a
Primrose Path, kicked the can, jumped
rope, ran to play hide and seek, and
skinned their knees.

Those who played at the end of
Primrose Path, never spoke.


PART TWO

It remains inside like a piece of metal
rusting, corroding any possibility of a
future - children have been torn,
or crumbled as a piece of used paper.

A silencer warned – all hell would let
loose - if a child spoke.


PART THREE

A neighborhood praised the silencer
as if a prince among the paupers
bringing gifts to thank him for his
business, and sharing drinks, or a puff
on a cigarette; shown as a home movie
on a wall.

His world of destruction had no expert
witness, or media, or tip off – and he
knew the preacher. A silencer told
his own stories, but never revealed
his true tattletales.

Memory chases without real pain
or formal cause; no reason to kill
a child’s recollection of a simple life,
and a child closes lips, tight as a
clam trying to survive without water.
In front of you as if you knew blacking
out as black and white TV.

A parade down primrose path; a beaten
path, ruts and grooves and arteries
carried on informally: a hobby horse
occupying space on top of boxes, near a
festival of color, near feathers of a peacock,
his hiding place.

Nancy Duci Denofio
All Rights Reserved@2010

STEP ON A CRACK

STEP ON A CRACK


All mothers in our neighborhood smoke
cigarettes and wear red Indian kerchiefs on
their forehead to keep sweat from falling
onto their faces - mothers all wear tube
tops - stuff toilet paper inside to make them
look big - send their children to the grocery
store, the drugstore where Mr. Ferro gives tiny
brown bags filled with little bottles of pills.

Mother looks worried when she runs out
of her little orange pills. She would say,
“run, I need my pills, it’s the only thing
that keeps me alive.”

So I grab two one dollar bills she has in her
hand- dash down Avenue A -without thinking
about the cracks or breaking mother’s back –
now I run as I clench my fist so hard my nails
dig into my palm - all I had to do was drop
two dollars.

On those days when I ran for mother, my mind
wasn’t on cracks in cement – but mother dead
at home, laying on our kitchen floor because
I was too slow.

Up the steps I climbed reaching the door to the
pharmacy – I see Mr. Ferro – he smiles - takes
two dollars and hands me this little brown bag
folded perfectly at the top, with two staples.
My steps are quick as I leave the drugstore.
Running down four cement steps, across Mason
Street to on Avenue A. I run - all the way home
expecting to see mother flat across our kitchen
floor – dead.

She isn’t. She is staring out the window
looking out toward Seneca Street - we live
on a corner. Perhaps mother was nervous back
then, and had to work so hard – we counted
pennies from our window ledge for a loaf of
American Bread – pennies, and if we were lucky
a dime or nickel was mixed into the clutter of
change. We took walks together too – mother
kept saying, “step on a crack break your mother’s
back.” I never stopped staring at the blocks of
cement with the name “Visco and Sons” printed
on each slab of stone.

Mother also sent me across the street to Central
Market, for a can of spam, oh, how could she
eat spam? or a can of white tuna fish she told me
it had to be “Tuna of the Sea.” Mother handed me
money then stared once more from our kitchen
window toward Central Market, kitty corner
from the house – directly across from the alley
way.

Walked across a parking lot, scuffing cinders
with shoes – counting change clenched in my
hand – wondering if she gave me too much? She
always gave the correct amount, knowing I
would take an extra ten cents from the window
ledge for the morning – to shove into my pocket
to bring to another store – sold penny candy
at noon time, when fifth and sixth graders walked
across Van Vranken Avenue to buy Malted Milk
Balls twenty for ten cents. Before crossing a busy
road, a lady in a man’s cop clothing, white gloves,
told us when to cross. That’s why mother didn’t care
if I went to the penny store with ten pennies to get
twenty Malted Milk Balls.

Finally I reach the house, climb the stairs with
a larger brown paper bag, holding the railing, daddy
told me when I left the house - no one worried about
people stealing children, but mother did – she watched
from her kitchen window – puffing on her cigarette –
until I opened the side door.

Central Market, a bigger grocery store – giant compared
to Charlie’s three doors down Avenue A – where slabs
of cement lifted up higher in spots, and lower in others.
I had to worry about mother’s back crossing Charlie’s
cement blocks.

Nancy Duci Denofio
All Rights Reserved
1-11-11

PETE THE COP

PETE the COP


The bars, the bars -
bars to the left, right,
front and back, then
there was that silent
stream of light
which filtered through
a slight crack in the
doorway - light,
from the kitchen.

God.
God he always stared at me,
always watched.
Four inches by four inches
on the wall above those wooden bars.

My brother two feet away
lay awake with Pete The Cop.
Why didn't I have a friend
in the crib?
But,
I had God -
he glowed in the dark.

At night God watched us play
iron curtain,
after all those hugs and kisses,
tucked in sheets...
Flat now.
Flat.
Flat.
Flat.
Turning my head and staring
toward my brother, “It's time.”

Heard the hiss from the
radiator, as he placed an old
navy blanket on the wooden
rail...
Now on my knees -
Little knees
Little hands
Little feet
Ears close to the rail
brother whispered,
"Iron Curtain Going Down."
pulling his side of the blanket.

“My turn, hurry - I want my turn.”
I whispered, knowing a crack will
enlarge, a bright light shine through
our bedroom door –

dark figures with broad shoulders,
and sand paper feet will stand
near the crib.

"Iron Curtain Going Down."

Was it the crack in the door
or God who scared me?
I'm sure it wasn't Pete the Cop...
but yes – yes -
a hug from Pete
would have felt so good.

Nancy Duci Denofio
all rights reserved
Editor - PORTRY IS LIFE
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A QUIET PLACE

A QUIET PLACE


When you enter a church
you get this – empty – feeling
as if . . . no one was there
but everyone – is – looking.

(Those wide wooden floors
in my grade school, and doors
opening to the hall, everyone
was looking.)

The altar at church is so
extravagant – God – lives
there inside a golden box near
little booths – a line forms
and nerves happen, the closer
we get to the red drape.

(The drapes Grandmother
made for her parlor are
nothing like these)

We all wondered why God
needed the man behind the
screen – to listen to us – to
hear us when we said, “I’m sorry.”
And at five, did we do anything
too – wrong?

(When I was bad at home, I
ran away to hide behind my
bedroom door.)

It was the Priest behind the
drape with a soft voice. A
Priest who would never let us
see him, and - when he whispered
his breath hit my face.

(When I talked back to mother
she sent me to my room where
I sat and stared out the screened
window.)

Inside the little booth with red
drapes, our fingers would tap and
thumbs twiddle as we sat in the dark
A slight reflection of red from
the drapes, waiting – for our
punishment – how many prayers
would we have to say at the altar?
And, in front of God, waiting in the
golden box.

(I never liked the dark, so Daddy
turned the night light on before I
went to sleep.)

Now, the Priest moved behind
the screen, his face no longer leaned
against it, his breath no longer
touching my cheeks. He now told
us how many prayers we had to
say to be forgiven, in front of
God and all his Saints.

(Grandmother she knelt everyday in
front of her table, at the foot of
her bed, and prayed.)

When it was my turn he told me
to say ten Our Fathers and ten
Hail Marys – the others watched
you finally knelt at the altar,
prayed – prayed – as they waited.

(Mother told me to hurry when
the street light turned on, because
it was getting dark)

We left the quiet place where
no one was – but, everyone was -
looking. Outside, on the steps of
the church we all looked at one
another and laughed – pointed at
the one who prayed the longest.

(But I knew God was not laughing
inside the golden box, like
Grandmother never laughed when
she prayed.)

Nancy Duci Denofio

CHILDREN NEVER CHOOSE

CHILDREN NEVER CHOOSE

I did not choose to be alone on a play ground
to push my favorite shoes in dirt to swirl
the merry go ground - at a slow pace. . .
Toss sand on a slide, hoping not to stick
to metal - wearing dresses - then.

I did not embrace the thought of walking
alone - down Avenue A passing the pharmacy
where my mother received her little round
pills - down Avenue A where my leg's carried
me over red ants hiding between cement.

I ran, ignored the neighbors who waved.
Told to rush - to run - not walk - to pick
up pills before mother died - she told me
so. . .

I did not choose to crawl up our staircase
to my grandmother's house, stopping midway -
to sit alone on the landing. . .
hearing mother's Irish temper explode, but,
she is Irish, I was told. . . and in a minute
- it was over, and she smiled.

I knew Grandmother stood tall at the top -
her apron stocked with chew gum - never gum.
Her hands in the pockets of her apron. . .
A finger to her lips - my little legs
crept up the stairs - she whispered, "New
cookies from Woolworths" -

A Sicilian, upstairs talked different from
mother downstairs, but I cherished both. . .
I did not vanish when I had to ride a
borrowed bike - or smile when a cousin
near the border of Vermont - gave me another. . .
I loved country rides on back roads.

I did not choose to flip flop in white
panties in a bright yellow pool while
Grandmother watched from her window
on the second floor - guarding her white
sheets - hung perfectly straight on a clothes
line draped from a garbage shed to our back
porch. . .

I played near her pear tree, her grape
vines, tomato plants, and beans. . .
close to a shed where dolls slept.
A shed furthest from our cellar door
where I split my toe - on a nail, on a
door where grey paint peeled near rusted
handles - opened to a place where the
boggy man lived.

I did not enjoy watching mother press
pretty dresses for me to wear - watch her
knit, sew, and leave everyday for work -
help pay bills - I created at birth. . .

I did not know my parents could not hold
me - three months - stared through glass
to see their child hooked to lines attached
at her forehead. . .
I did not single out my parent's but I felt
lucky I survived to be their chorus. . .

I did not hand pick my socks, shoes, or
choose the style of my - hair - mother cut
ringlets - stored them inside a red
and white striped box, clips of white
still attached - closed with white ribbon.
Curls chopped off because at five - a school
nurse warned every mothers in our neighborhood
about bugs - about bugs - bugs jumping from
one head to another.

But - I may have selected to stay alone while
playing at the playground. But, I don't
remember why?

Nancy Duci Denofio
all right reserved