Tony Gloeggler

TRADING PLACES OR OUT AMONG

THE MISSING AND LOST

Maybe I was on the D train

methodically making my way

to a Yankee Stadium day game

when some legless beggar rolled

slowly through the car holding

a paper cup in his clenched teeth.

While I wondered if he was faking

like Eddie Murphy in Trading Places

or if his legs were really blown to bits

outside a Vietnam village in 1968,

my friend Dave leaned over, took

a handful of change from his pocket.

I think I thought about India, how

I once heard or read that fathers

would mangle, cut off a limb or two

for added sympathy when their children

were old enough to hit the streets, beg

Americans for money. I couldn’t help

but remember when I was five years old,

a cripple with a heavy iron brace strapped

down my left leg, a Frankenstein boot

on my other foot and everybody stared

at poor poor pitiful embarrassed me

as I shut my eyes, tried to disappear

to a place where no one could find me

and taught myself never to ask

for anything from anyone as that guy

raised his eyes, nodded thanks.

I was hoping Pettitte was pitching

as Dave started talking body parts,

which one he’d least like to lose

in a sudden drunk driving accident

or to some unnamed mysterious disease.

When he swore he’d rather die than lose

his cock, we both laughed as the train

chugged toward the Bronx. I don’t know

if he was afraid of the pain, worried

about the humiliation of pissing through

a thin tube or whether he was already

missing all the women he imagined

one day fucking, carefully calculating

degrees and fractions of how much

less of a man it would make him feel.

I doubt if he was imagining his wife,

pregnant with hopefully his second son

and all the times lying next to her

wishing he could masturbate in peace.

I’d already realized I’d never get to use

my cock as often as I daydreamed

and I was tired of being worn down

by expectations and unfulfilled promise.

A few fantasies had even come true

but still didn’t turn out nearly as good

as I imagined. Besides, I was always

afraid of losing my eyes, my sight

since I stood in the back of first grade

unable to read the eye chart. No,

I couldn’t make out that big black E

no matter how hard or often Sister Carolina

hit it with her pointer as the kids

all laughed louder and later made fun

of my thick framed glasses. Even now

when I sleep, I keep a hallway light on,

worried about crazy nightmares, chased

by slow motion zombies and falling

helplessly into the gaping black holes

of where their eyeballs should be.

Whenever I see a blind person walking

the streets of NYC with their gentle dog

or tapping and sweeping their cane

as they slowly make their way down

subway steps, I want to follow them

everywhere they go, introduce myself

and ask them question after question

in a too loud, silly sing-song tone

about fearlessness and darkness,

what kind of music they like, if

they’ve lost or found God, how

trapped or angry, crazy and lonely

they feel, if they’d like to hang out,

go for a cup of coffee or tea, find

a bar and drink until we sing karaoke,

get into a brawl, puke and pass out.

Me, I’d probably stay in bed, pray

it wasn’t too late to become

an old black Mississippi blues man,

wait for my friends and family

to drop off food and shopping bags

filled with bootleg CDs, listen

to baseball on a tiny transistor radio,

perfect helplessness, wither deeper

into myself and my limited imagination,

miss the things I did, didn’t, and will

never get to do, everything I never

watch carefully enough, the ugliness,

the beauty I turn too quickly away from.

I’d miss everything new and exciting

I somehow might someday stumble upon.

—from Rattle #34, Winter 2010

Tribute to Mental Health Workers