I sit here gazing out my kitchen window
I see the mist settling on Manhattan
From my sixteenth floor perch
I look down upon the tops of trees
over a hundred years old
I see the Bronx and Fordham Road

All the way up Snake Hill to George Washington High School
The home where I was raised two blocks down on Audubon Avenue
In my minds eye, I visualize the symmetrical courtyard
where there were fancy cement miniature columns
creating a gate around space where small bushes grew

After you climbed the first set of stairs
you entered the courtyard
where there were two
more ornate cement gates
columns flanked the stairs behind which
there were more tendered bushes

There was an entrance to your left and to your right
Either way there were bushes surrounded by
Fancy cement miniature columns creating a
Gate around space where small bushes grew

In the center, looking to the rear of the courtyard,
I see the cement bench with ornate arms beckoning,
Fancy cement gates enclosing gardens
Surrounding the ornate bench

I climbed those gates and burst my lip on falling,
hit my chin, and scraped my knee so badly
the scab was at least half an inch thick
The other children playing with their many games,
Me wanting to join in, falling because I didn’t
know how to follow, wanting to belong yet
not knowing how, wanting to play, not knowing how
I remember. “Stand here,” she said to me
and placed me with my legs apart
driving between them with her bike rubbing my crotch,
Me wanting to belong, not understanding,
Yet feeling its wrong

I had my books and hid away,
I was ashamed of my family
My mother with her grayed and stringy hair,
Her worn dingy housecoats, swarthy dark skin and big lips,
her failings, her prejudices, ... her feelings
Dad, appearing home after nights spent away
Bearing gifts of candy, promises he never kept
Mom and big sis hissing at me,
“Keep away from him,
He’s spent all the money.”

His masturbatory acts on the front couch
Where he lay day after day, sleeping away
Covered, waiting, begging me
to scratch his balding head
Pretending stimulation would save his hair

His entering the bathroom and pulling
his huge hard cock from his boxer shorts
while I lay bathing
His snide, sly look at me with beady eyes,

Me trying to cover my self with a wash cloth,
Wondering where it would do the most good,
Over my breasts or between my legs
Looking and wondering,
longing for ... escape

He, ... watching me, ...
Me, ... being forced to watch him 

He, walking around with his shorts cracked open in the front
His cock visible, looking like a rooted forest tree
“Put a lock on the door,” I begged them. I was eight then,
 the lock was installed when I reached eleven.
I looked like a woman then. I was sexy. Still am too.

I see me reaching puberty, afraid, wondering
Where I’ll go or what I’ll be
Brother’s gone long ago,
Sisters on their way
I feel like a prisoner here
Stuck, all alone, another vicious day

Prisoner of mommy’s rage,
her fears and sensitivities,
Daddy’s anger and hostility
All the hurt and pain
centered in bewilderment

GOD WHY AM I HERE
CAN’T I HAVE ANOTHER FAMILY?

Learning took me twice as long
Tears stood in my way
Tranquility was striven for
In the midst of horror, war

Still, in spite of all
Here I sit today
Gazing through the window
of my co-op’s Eastern wall

Watching the sunrise, the morning mist,
The tops of buildings, the road beneath ...