graffiti, legend and folklore
tammy boyd
I tired of fiction early,
leaving behind Judy Blume like
a cheap doll given by a
dirty old uncle. Started
picking up books more
appropriately titled
Are you there, Master
of the Universe? It’s me,
Moishe.
Trading the children’s section
for the cold spaciousness of
the grown-up stacks -
a miniature scholar
crouching in the shadows
of the towering shelves,
gleaning and perusing
black-and-white photos
of People Who Had It
Worse Than Me.
Bored to death of being a kid,
I changed my reading habits
dramatically.
In sixth grade my teacher called
my mother to inform her that
I was reading Stephen King
novels in geography class.
(They definitely would have
sensed a problem had I been
found reading Escape from a
Nazi Death Camp.)
It is in bad taste to have
thought, in my elementary
understanding, that I could
relate to their sad, dark eyes
hollow with fear and lack of food,
feeling deeply the hopelessness
of their capacity and just
beginning to notice my own?
After all, I was just a ward
of the state, a child of the
system, a nameless, faceless
receiver of public aid, a
welfare leech too young to
know my dependence on the
spectres of the social workers who
would visit my house to stuff
me into their smelly little cars
(do I smell gas?)
and play AM radio
(How can you tell and adult
that “Sexual Healing”
is not a song for kids?)
on the way to therapy,
feeling like a psychology experiment
destined to self-destruct,
threatening to vomit all over the
Citation symbol on the dash.
After I was released from the
Department of Public Welfare
files I ventured into the
blinding sunlight of the wide
wide world, and only
sometimes read book like that,
trading Treblinka for the
Song of Albion and only
occasionally flashing back to the
horror of Nazi Germany and my own
childhood nightmare when I
stand before White Crucifixion
by Chagall and tremble for a
moment picturing gestapo jerks
trashing the room and poking a
machine gun into my back
whispering “Spit on it or die.”
Do I dare folloow the example of
my adopted nacestors, raising
my hands to the ceiling and praying,
“Jehovah deliver me,”
welcoming the spray
of bullets, the working out
of His deliverance and my redemption.
