“1969” by Tony Gloeggler

[audioplayer file=”https://admin.rattle.com/audio/Gloeggler1969.mp3″]

Tony Gloeggler

1969

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 Rattle #25, Summer 2006
Tribute to the Best of Rattle

__________

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.” (web)