Floating Above the World
One morning on my way to school,
I took orange pills from our window
ledge – the one facing Seneca Street
where mother watches me if I run
to fetch something from the big market. . .
I take her pills from the ledge, stuff pills
into the pocket of a freshly starched
pink flowered dress.
Behind grandmother’s bushes near
red beans – I would make mud pies,
but this is where I removed the top.
All those orange pills stared at me, as
if they had eyes – eye like thos who
lived in our neighborhood.
I took one – chewed it – started to
walk, first past Charlie’s Grocery – he
wasn’t in his rocker chewing on a cigar –
I walked down Avenue A toward my
school – noticed one of mother’s friends
beating a rug against the railing of her
porch. She never looked my way, so I
took another orange pill from a tiny jar,
and chewed it like a baby asprin, glanced
toward the porch, waved to mother’s
friend, while I sneaked the bottle back into
my pocket. I thought, I must have taken
enough to live?
“Twinkle – Twinkle little star…”
Humming the same song, and leaning
my head against the push out window
of our Studebaker… “How I wonder what
you are?”
I began to draw stick figures on our car
window – Studebaker’s had push out ones –
I rubbed the window clean – breathing again –
puffing, rubbing it, breathing, rubbing,
drawing, erasing, drawing, erasing –
exhaling, and breathing, drawing, erasing it –
“Up above the world so high….”
I believe it was my first time to fly.