Free Verse

by Sarah Dooley

  SCHOOL HALLS

  Anthony walks me

  from English to my locker

  in total silence.

  “You okay?” he asks at last.

  I nod a quick lie at him.

  SCHOOL HALLS (PART TWO)

  Jaina walks with me

  from Spanish to my locker,

  nervously speaking.

  She tries to fill the quiet,

  but does not know what to say.

  SCHOOL HALLS (PART THREE)

  I walk my own self

  from my locker to the bus,

  my head full of words.

  They rattle around in there,

  but they refuse to shake loose.

  14. ENCLOSED TERCET ONCE MORE

  How many lines? Write three.

  The middle is different. It doesn’t rhyme.

  The middle one is me.

  —SEPTEMBER 23

  THE ORANGE BOTTLE

  It’s for anxiety. I’m supposed to take it every day.

  It makes my mouth dry and my head ache.

  I still don’t have anything to say.

  WHAT THEY MEAN BY “ANXIETY”

  is that sometimes the classroom gets too loud

  and I’m afraid Mikey will call for me and I won’t hear him,

  so I get up and leave, and that’s not allowed.

  THE POLICE COME AGAIN

  On foot, I leave school, a place I’d rather avoid.

  It’s dark outside and in the house when I get home.

  The police should be worried, but instead they’re annoyed.

  SHIRLEY’S PUNISHMENT

  “We tried being nice so’s you wouldn’t go roam.

  We had the patience of Job, but the Good Lord knows that didn’t work.

  You’re grounded from writing them poems.”

  I need

  my

  words

  It is too

  dark to see too dark to

  write but

  this way

  shirley won’t catch me

  IN TROUBLE

  Days and days, I walk,

  not talking and not writing.

  I am a shadow.

  SHIRLEY

  I think she thinks she’s

  helping when she tries to be

  strict like a parent.

  CRAZY

  Yesterday I thought

  about following in the

  footsteps of Aster.

  The orange bottle has my name.

  The ones in the cabinet have other names.

  OCTOBER 2

  Grounding

  is supposed

  to be a

  week, but Hubert takes

  pity.

  SAVED

  Hubert makes Shirley let me off the hook.

  I’m glad. It’s time for poetry club.

  I’m going to need my notebook.

  RELIEF

  I’m relieved to have my notebook.

  I’m relieved to have my pen.

  I’m relieved that when I have a thought

  I can write it down again.

  ANTHONY TRIES

  And tries and tries and tries

  to get some words out of me.

  I try, too, but they will not rise

  from down in the depths of me.

  MY SCHEDULE

  Work around the house

  with Hubert on Mondays

  Mr. Powell on Tuesdays

  Beckley for therapy Wednesdays

  Thursdays are poetry club

  Fridays I work at the pawnshop

  to replace the window

  I don’t remember

  breaking while

  I was barred

  from writing

  poetry.

  SPY IN THE GRASS

  Hubert says,

  “We’re treading water, Phyllis.

  She’s working off the window uptown,

  and the only reason they didn’t suspend her

  for leaving school that day is she’s . . .

  special.

  That’s what they’re calling her.

  Special.

  She’s taking them dang pills

  that are supposed to calm her down

  and I don’t see them making a

  danged bit of difference

  and she still ain’t spoke a

  word.”

  There is silence while, I’m sure, Phyllis is

  patting Hubert’s hand or

  squeezing his shoulder.

  I scratch at the window frame

  and rotted wood comes off under my fingernails.

  Underneath are termites.

  “Keep treading,” Phyllis says.

  “That little girl needs us

  to keep her head above water.”

  Then I am deeply embarrassed

  and deeply grateful

  and I stop listening at the window

  and follow Stella through the grass.

  OCTOBER 8

  Today is Mikey’s tenth birthday.

  I want to bake muffins.

  But the pilot light

  won’t stay lit

  and then there is a

  sopping mess of batter on the stove

  and a sobbing mess of girl on the floor.

  I HAVE STOPPED

  corralling

  my poems

  by form.

  They run

  loose like

  wild dogs.

  SIX DAYS OF BEING LEFT IN PEACE TO MOURN MIKEY

  Shirley takes the babies

  and goes to stay

  with her mother

  for six days.

  When she comes home,

  I am lying on the couch

  watching the fruit flies

  circle the broken ceiling fan.

  She shakes her head

  and walks into the kitchen,

  where she throws out the black bananas

  and the green wheat bread.

  She has to see the tears rolling

  sideways into my hair, and how Hubert

  will not hold his head up, but she

  does not ask us if we are okay.

  She pushes back the curtains

  and opens the window

  to dump the moldy coffee,

  six days old, from the pot.

  She mutters under her breath,

  “This is a shame,

  is what this is.”

  15. EPISTLE REVISITED

  —OCTOBER 19

  Dear Michael,

  You don’t know the other Michael Harless,

  but he’s ten.

  He has light brown hair

  and light green eyes

  and I’ve only ever seen his face clean once.

  He has a different first name,

  but he’s a Michael Harless

  and he does things like he doggone means them.

  I wonder if you could keep an eye out for him.

  If you could just check and make sure he’s all right.

  I know you wanted me to get out of Caboose,

  and I thought that’s what I wanted, too,

  but for right now, I need Mikey to come home with me

  and let us finish growing up before we choose.

  I don’t want to let you down.

  But Mikey’s ten

  and his name is Michael Harless

  and I don’t want him to die.

  Can you find him for me?

  Dear Mikey,

  I’ve spent a lot of time wishing that we never opened the box.

  That we never walked in t
he sun, ate strawberries from the fields,

  slept in a meadow under the stars, bought hot dogs from a street vendor,

  and ran from the police.

  But all those things happened.

  And there are other things that happened.

  Your mother loved you enough to take you with her when she left.

  Your father loved you enough to come and find you.

  Your cousin loved you enough to take you away so you didn’t get hurt.

  I’ve been mad at you for not coming home when all those people love you,

  but I guess what we love is that you do things your own way.

  And sometimes I want just one person

  to love that about me.

  I’m not mad anymore.

  If you come back,

  I will make you a dozen gnarled finger-bone muffins with extra chocolate

  and we’ll lie on the front porch in the sun

  and you won’t have to tell me where you’ve been

  if you don’t want to.

  And if you don’t come back,

  I’ll think about you all the time,

  and when I travel someday,

  I’ll keep an eye out for you.

  But I finally get it.

  You’ve got to decide for yourself

  Where you want to be.

  —NOVEMBER 1

  SPEAK

  Once,

  there was the crackle of a radio

  and a voice calling for Michael Harless,

  who was never going to answer.

  His silence sank into my heart slowly,

  but it did sink.

  Tonight,

  There is the ringing of a phone,

  And the voice of Mikey Harless

  Begs to come home.

  The line, once silent, comes alive.

  Two voices get found.

  26

  “Do you think he’s mad at me?”

  Hubert about drives the truck off the road when I speak, halfway up to Beckley in the middle of the night. It’s not the first time tonight that I’ve done it—I told him Mikey was on the phone—but I guess after five months of quiet, he’s not used to the sound of my voice.

  “Sasha, Mikey gets mad for no reason sometimes. I don’t want you to worry that you’ve done something wrong.”

  “Well, did he sound mad to you? He sounded mad to me. And I did do something wrong.”

  “Nobody’s mad at you,” Hubert promises. Which doesn’t mean the same thing as telling me I didn’t do anything wrong.

  I can’t sit still. I tug at the seat belt, tuck my feet up under me, let them down again. The drive to Beckley’s gotten familiar, but this midnight trip feels more like when me and Mikey ran away than a normal drive.

  Hubert’s got directions written down on the top page of Shirley’s apple-shaped notepad. He looks at them so often, I’m afraid he’s not looking at the road enough, but before long, he’s got us steered out the other side of town and down a road that winds next to a creek.

  “Is he living out here?” I ask. I haven’t seen any houses in a while.

  “I don’t know,” he says. “He just put her on the phone, and she gave me directions.”

  “You talked to Mikey’s mom?”

  “Enough to get directions.”

  “Well, how’d . . . how’d she sound?” It feels strange to be talking, but I can’t keep all the questions in. My heart hammers in my chest, and I curl and uncurl my fingers. What if something happens and Mikey’s not where Aster said he’d be?

  Hubert wipes a hand quickly down his face, and I feel the truck speed up. I think Hubert must feel the same way I do, like we need to get there as fast as we can.

  “She sounded like Aster,” he answered, in a voice that implies that’s not a good thing.

  • • •

  I’m expecting Mikey—filthy face, tough-guy attitude—but what we see when we pull up to the long stone building is a blanket-wrapped bundle in a stranger’s arms. At least to me she’s a stranger. I know who she is, though; would know even if we hadn’t talked about her. Aster looks just like Mikey. Same light brown hair, same narrowed eyes.

  We’ve met at what Mikey called “home,” a run-down old train station, red cinder block next to rusted lengths of unused track. The broken windows look like something I might have done on a bad day, which frightens me. I don’t want to think I have anything in common with this woman who got addicted, who lives in a train station, and who kept a lost boy.

  Aster looks almost sweet as she presses the bundle of blankets into Hubert’s arms. She’s wearing shorts even though it’s the first of November, and her eyes look old. She never seems to look directly at anybody, not even Hubert, who she used to love so much she married him. I’m not sure she even knows I’m here. I watch her eyes move from Mikey’s hair to the quilt to the hood of the truck and back again. I watch Hubert, how he can’t take his eyes off her.

  “Aster,” he says. “It’s cold outside. Why don’t you come home with us?”

  I imagine what that might look like, introducing Aster to Shirley. But Aster shakes her head, pressing on the lump of blankets that is her son. “No, I’m good, I’m good here. I’ll stay here. You take the boy, Hubert. You take our boy, you take him now.” She keeps saying these words over and over, pressing on Hubert’s arms, pressing us toward the truck, pressing the door closed behind us. Through the window, she keeps saying it. “You take good care of our boy, Hubert Harless. You take care of him.” She has a necklace of a heart, and the cheap metal’s left a green stripe around her neck. Her hands shake as she reaches into the blankets, stroking Mikey’s hair.

  Mikey doesn’t wake up or look back as the truck reverses onto vine-covered pavement that’s too old to be sturdy enough anymore for cars. We rumble over rocks and chunks of old gravel as we pull away. Me and Hubert have Mikey propped between us, heavy head bouncing from my shoulder to his. In the side view I can see his mother’s hair as she leans into the wind. I know it’s impossible, but I think I can see her dry, cold cheeks. She’s holding her last blanket closed with her hands. I think about what it must have meant to her to give up two of her blankets to Mikey, leaving him wrapped as she handed him to us. I think of what it must have taken, of how much of a mother she must still be, to hand him to us. I shiver in the full-blast heat from the vent.

  Mikey sleeps all the way to the hospital. He stretches at one point, and his legs fall across me, toes curling against the door handle. His skin is filthy and warm. A couple of times he moves, and I know he’s trying not to wake up, trying not to face us or anything else just yet. I know he’ll be quiet for a while. I might have to talk for both of us.

  In the light of a passing car, I see tears on Hubert’s face. They’re rolling silently down into his beard. I think about the woman in the abandoned train station, in shorts and a sweater, clutching her quilt. I think about how he used to love her. I think about the look she had on her face when we drove away. She looked like Michael when we got the news about Ben. Like Phyllis when I broke her GUI-tar. Helpless. Like we’d pulled the cord on the last light in her life.

  Hubert wakes Mikey at the hospital. It takes him a minute to blink awake, but once he does, he flings himself at Hubert, winding skinny arms around his neck.

  “Hey. Hey there, buddy. Okay.” Hubert keeps him wrapped in the blankets and carries him inside. I think about the first time I ran away from Phyllis and how they gave me an IV and took care of my feet. I don’t know what might be wrong with Mikey, and I’m not sure whether I’m supposed to talk to him. I decide not to talk unless he talks first.

  I’m asleep in the waiting room when Hubert comes to find me a while later. “We can go,” he says softly. He’s got Mikey in his arms, now wrapped in a clean blanket and sound asleep again.

  At
home, Hubert carries Mikey past Shirley’s car, which is parked at the edge of the driveway with the motor running. He takes Mikey into the house and tucks him into his bed. He comes back out to deal with Shirley, who is following two steps behind him.

  “He’s okay?” she asks.

  “He’s okay. Lost some weight. A little dehydrated. But he’s okay.”

  “Oh, I’m so glad, Hugh. I’m so glad he’s home,” she says. The sound of her voice is so odd that I look up to study her face. Her eyes are shining with tears, and she reaches up to touch Hubert’s cheek. “I knew you’d bring him home.”

  “Shirley, why’s your car running?”

  She turns away, walks into the girls’ room, and comes back a minute later with a sleeping Sara in her arms. “We’re going to be at my mother’s if you need us.”

  “Shirl?”

  “I couldn’t leave a man who had lost his son,” Shirley says. “You’ve got your boy back. Now I can go.”

  The words take a minute to sink in, and then I feel the breath punch out of me. Poor Hubert! I think.

  “But . . . my girls . . .” He reaches a hand toward Sara, tucks a loose curl behind her ear.

  Shirley watches him do it. “You’ll see them. I’m not going to keep you from them.” Her breath hitches and she passes him, carrying Sara out the front door to the waiting car. When she returns a moment later, Hubert has already picked up Marla and is cradling her under his chin. Shirley takes the sleeping girl from him, kisses her hair, and heads for the door. I reach out to touch a bit of Marla’s hair as Shirley carries her by. Hubert and I follow them to the porch, and she comes back to face him, standing on the bottom porch step like she wants to climb back up, but thinks better of it.

  “Please don’t do this,” he says. His voice sounds so rough that I’m afraid he might be crying. “Shirl, I love you. Please don’t go.”

  “Aww, Hubert . . .” She lays her fingertips against his forehead. “I know that right here, you think you love me.” Then she moves her palm to cover his heart. “But I haven’t been right here in too long, and, honey, that’s where I’d need to be if it was ever going to work.” It’s the sweetest and the calmest I’ve ever heard her voice sound, even though her face is tearstained. She kisses Hubert once on his scraggly cheek and walks back to the car, climbs behind the wheel. She backs up quickly enough that the tailpipe scrapes the embankment on the other side of the road. She pulls out, first onto gravel, then onto pavement. Leaves rustle back and forth in front of the taillights, making them flicker. It’s hard to tell when the exact last moment is that we can still see them.