Authors: Matthew Aaron Goodman
Hold Love Strong (26 page)
Reprise
I
stood at the bus stop, the cusp of self-realization; the cusp of self-expansion. Behind me was a vacant lot surrounded by a rusted fence with black plastic bags snared along its top edge, where they'd been caught and now had to wait for the weather to beat them free. Across the street was Ever Park, our buildings, two towers looming, great brick beasts with my life in their bellies. Standing beside me were a few teenagers younger than me, and a young woman and her infant in a stroller. Cars drove past. I was the young, wiry, weary-looking brother standing on the side of Columbus Avenue, his back bowed with the weight of his belongings, his eyes wide with determination and shock.
Suddenly, as if he'd been dropped from a sky above mine, Lindbergh arrived, dragging his shopping cart full of miscellany. He stopped and studied us, we who waited for the bus. A car passed him. The driver honked and yelled out of the window for him to get out the way. Lindbergh didn't even flinch. He scratched his head. Then, as if recalling
the initial thought that caused him to stop, he made a quizzical face, his brow furrowing with the cock of one eyebrow. I wondered what he saw. I wondered what he might mumble. I was a refugee, a child soldier, an asylum seeker who couldn't believe the pending bounty of his new life. Lindbergh stood tall, let his hand fall from his cart, then swung it to his forehead and saluted. He smiled, his few remaining teeth worn to nubs in his rose-colored gums. Then he laughed. He held his belly, leaned back, and laughed into the sky. He leaned forward and laughed at the street. He planted his hands on his hips. Then still laughing a little, he shook his head and turned to his shopping cart. He mumbled something to himself and dug through all that he owned, all of the bric-a-brac and gathered things and the items that reminded him of other items and selves, the courageous parts and the irreparable ones. He found what he was looking for, a solitary feather. Holding it between his finger and thumb, he admired it for a moment. Then he stuck it into his hair and with the feather jutting parallel to the street, Lindbergh took hold of his shopping cart and walked away, proud of his belongings, pulling them with him.
I wish to thank my teachers and love, my wife, Nadia, all of whom are responsible for providing and supporting the privilege of my education in traditional institutions of higher education like schools, houses of worship, universities, and places that provided even greater lessons about humanity like bars, basketball courts, Greyhound buses, dance floors, 525 Gates Avenue, 8-Plus, 46 Beard Street, and the Leadership Alliance. I wish to thank my brothers: Joshua Goodman and David Goodman, Derek Hyra, John Wedges, Brian “Besus” Samuel, Gil Soltz, Adam Gerson, Ethan Field, and
The Nobodies,
Clintel “Steady” Steed, Michael “Big Mike” Dopp, and Jay Baron “Booms” Nicorvo. I wish to thank Thomas Perry, William Brown, Phil Jackson, Tony Isaacs, Eddie Batista, Ronald Willis, Tina Haluscka, Ronald Vanzant, Anthony McFadden, Felipe Vargas, and Bradley Solomon, men (and a woman) among men. I wish to thank Arisa White, Jessica Pressman (and my man Brad Lupian), Bill Knott, Martha Rhodes, Joseph Caldwell, Simon Ortiz, and Steven Kuchuk, all of whom prove poetry is more es
sential than dollars and bombs. I wish to thank Mark and Rochelle Jacobson, Gail and Bruce and the extended Leibowitz family, Chandra Williams, Eric Louis, Marquis Cothren, Benjamin Polo, Jae Cho, David Eustace, Uli Grueber, the 92nd Street Y, the Vermont Studio Center, Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, David Hagland, M. Mark, and the Pen Journal. I want to thank Victoria Sanders, Bennee Knaver, and asha bandele for believing, and Sulay Hernandez and Touchstone Fireside for believing too. I want to thank my mother, Arlene Goodman, who taught me the only way to love is with totality, and my father, Bernard Goodman, who taught me to think before speaking. Herein lays my heart, nothing more, nothing less.