| # 11: Keel: Sunset Park |
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Poem "Sunset Park" by Hillary Keel:
Hillary Keel
Sunset Park
Steaming Brooklyn pavement and Sunday kids bucket up water, dousing crowns and shining faces. Eyes, noses, hair become fluid, their hollers and yelps: I watch from eye’s corner, from edge of chair and mind,
from window: I am a hungry ghost to watch their water play. Unfathomable: my white pages lilting in air space—nothing so bad as this holiday weekend. I page through blue book then green one, toss paper on the floor, watch letters swirl
as upstairs neighbor passes window, his familiar mumble speaks of bullet up some guy’s ass while children screech and splash beyond
later this other huge dude cranks up car radio, blasts sound through window screen, vibrates my ribcage, spine and skull.
No drink, no holiday feast: I have paper, the old canvas chair, no one to hose me down or kiss my cheek, graze fingertips across shoulders or bring me almonds to nibble, a glass of iced tea.
I drop papers to table and leave my rooms, push metal door that squeaks then slams to approach this car radio dude, his clan, they grill prepared meats in tins with spices from their country, they speak Spanish.
Me, I show white hair, white papers, we converse, he extends a hand, an infant in the woman’s arms gurgles. He concedes and says, anyway, it wastes his battery to listen to the car radio.
Back to this space: walls with molding, wooden floors, glass knobs—how I once hungered to work in peace and toss pages anywhere as I do now.
Then the kitchen, its wooden bowl and arugula, tomatoes, mushrooms. I spice up a sauce that sings of a night out there, so I traipse out
to park sit in sunset: kids throw ball into light, Chinese flute hums the hill, a couple embraces against a sycamore tree—
then cut across to 44th and 8th Ave, where Chinatown blinks colored lights and spikey fruits (I first saw in Europe when someone spoke of New York)
and vegetables lit up under awnings, Chinese characters, flip flops, crates, packages wrapped in cellophane, umbrellas, smoothies, bubble tea, fish tanks and lobsters. I stroll into a bakery—inside someone asks, Ma’am what do you want?
Along the blocks, I don’t know for what, the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge swoops closer, but away from crowds up 54th an old man has set two folding chairs under a tree, half shadows, half 8th Avenue lights, he sits there with small girl in white and red dress, speaking in Chinese, quiet, like the flapping of cards as she sways her legs, like she’s swinging.
I eye the house-lined street to 5th Avenue where Mexico begins, cactus leaf vendors gone home, frosted cakes and piñatas fading in shop windows then back to my rooms, other side of the park
I am so proud on the floor await white papers
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