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      May 28, 20141969Tony Gloeggler

      My brother enlisted
      in the winter. I pitched
      for the sixth-grade Indians
      and coach said
      I was almost as good
      as Johnny. My mother
      fingered rosary beads,
      watched Cronkite say
      and that’s the way it is.
      I smoked my first
      and last cigarette. My father
      kept his promise,
      washed Johnny’s Mustang
      every weekend. Brenda Whitson
      taught me how to French kiss
      in her basement. Sundays
      we went to ten o’clock Mass,
      dipped hands in holy water,
      genuflected, walked down
      the aisle and received
      Communion. Cleon Jones
      got down on one knee, caught
      the last out and the Mets
      won the World Series.
      Two white-gloved Marines
      rang the bell, stood
      on our stoop. My father
      watched their car
      pull away, then locked
      the wooden door. I went
      to our room, climbed
      into the top bunk,
      pounded a hard ball
      into his pillow. My mother
      found her Bible, took
      out my brother’s letters,
      put them in the pocket
      of her blue robe. My father
      started Johnny’s car,
      revved the engine
      until every tool
      hanging in the garage
      shook.

      from #25 - Summer 2006

      Tony Gloeggler

      “I’m not sure I ever wanted to be a writer or poet—in most ways I feel poetry is elitist and no one I grew up with or work with reads it and too often I can’t convince myself that they’re missing something important. I think writing poetry is just another of those things that always makes me feel like I don’t quite fit in. Like when I was a four-year-old and wore this big heavy leg brace and a huge Frankenstein boot on the other or when I was a superstar schoolyard jock with hair down to my ass or when I was a long hair and never touched any drugs or when I’m the only Caucasian in the group home where I work or I’m a poet who perfectly understands why hardly anyone reads poetry or needs to. Still, I write poetry and it matters a lot to me. I write for myself, though I would love to have a lot of people read my work. But mostly I feel at home when I’m writing, like I’m doing one of the things I’m supposed to do and when I get it right, when a poem is done and I can tell it’s good, well, it just lifts me. It makes me fool myself into believing that I was the only one who could do this, make this poem, and it’s one of those times when sticking out or standing out is all good.”

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