The blind one drifts and sees nothing.
It’s scary if you don’t know she has no vision in it.
And we didn’t know this for a long time.
Now something else slams
against the wall, shatters.
I’m not sure if it’s a chair
or someone’s head.
This goes on and on,
from the beginning of
The Danny Thomas Show
to the end of The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet.
When my parents are like this,
all I have is my brother.
When I’m this close to him,
I remember how innocent he smells.
He was born easygoing and benign,
unlike me, who, they claim,
came out yowling and cursing
like an Italian mafioso.
My mother says I’m still like that.
Like what? A hit man?
But I’ve heard my dad say,
“You’re the crazy one, Judith!”
Once I overheard my grandmother tell her sister, my great-aunt Dalvinka,
I was a difficult baby.
Why do I have to know this?
As if right from the start
I wanted to cause trouble?
I asked my gran,
“If a mother blames her newborn
for being colicky,
should she be a mother
in the first place?”
She answered me in Hungarian.
A language she knows I don’t understand.
TOO YOUNG
Davy and I never talk much.
Even now, no words.
Anyway, I don’t want to scare him.
I’m wondering,
maybe I should call my gran.
Joe and Judith have never thrown things
at each other before.
But Judith would kill me,
I mean kill me dead
for letting her mother know the truth.
I’m only fourteen and three quarters.
Way too young
and too annoyed to die.
BUZZ. BUZZ.
Finally, my parents are speaking
in normal tones, mumble, mumble.
I call this lull “the bargaining phase.”
They bought a book that tells them
they must learn to de-escalate.
Once I snuck a peek at it.
I guess it works, at least once in a while.
The house is quiet now,
and Davy’s eyes flutter closed.
He has a talent for shutting down.
He’s a human turtle.
Dozing, he’s drooling a little foamy river
down his flannel shirt.
I guess I glaze over, too,
because when my bleary eyes
open again,
the national anthem is playing on TV,
and there’s a photo montage of the flag
and the station ID.
That means broadcasting is ending for the night.
This is followed by
black-and-white mind-numbing test patterns
that probably aren’t that different
than what’s going on in my brain.
Buzz. Buzz.
I feel like I reside on a battlefield.
Like the German painter George Grosz,
who survived WWI
And the artists Käthe Kollwitz, Oskar Kokoschka.
From their canvases and drawings,
I’ve learned something about
what they lived through.
I wish they could see my life.
Not nearly as difficult as theirs.
But maybe they could give me some tips.
STICK AROUND
Footsteps. My dad, buttoning up
his expensive cashmere overcoat,
bursts out of their bedroom
and rushes by us.
“Maisie, Davy,
I won’t see you for a few days.
Leaving for a business trip.”
He’s like a firefly lately,
here, gone, here, gone,
and, like a firefly,
he lights up the place in tiny, short spurts.
“Hey, kids, don’t look so forlorn!”
He winks.
“I’ll be back. Don’t worry!”
That wink is almost the worst part.
It’s saying everything is okay.
But everything is not okay.
I jump up, mutely tug
his soft, creamy sleeve,
because the words “don’t go!”
are glued in my throat
as if I swallowed a jar
of sticky peanut butter.
I want to say, “Dad, tomorrow’s
the first day of high school!
Don’t make me slink in there
all sad and distracted.
Stick around.
Ask me some questions, like
‘Maisie, honey, do you have
all your textbooks?
Will any kids from last year
be in your class?
Are you worried about being in the AP?
Do you have art courses?
I sure hope so!’
You could say something encouraging,
like ‘Maisie, you’re the best.
You have nothing to worry about.
The other kids would be lucky
to have you as a friend.’”
But no, the front door slams.
“Bye, Dad … love you too … coward!”
Coward because you’re leaving
Davy and me with someone
you can’t handle!
It’s a good thing parents don’t get report cards.
LAST YEAR
“I wonder how long he’ll be MIA this time?”
I whisper to Davy. “Where does he go?
Last year he went to France.
Never even told us!”
“Paris!” he says, waking up. “I hope the bastard
never comes back.”
“Are you kidding, Davy? She’s the real problem.”
“Not my problem, Maisie,”
he whispers, nodding off again.
I lead him to his sparrow-blue room
and manage to foist him
on top of his stupid truck-patterned bedspread,
wrestle off his smelly sneakers.
Asleep, he’s almost purring like a kitten.
Asleep, I don’t resent him at all.
BASKET CASE
Outside, the police have quit shouting
into their walkie-talkies.
The squad car,
with Mr. O’Neill inside,
finally screeches away.
Another one pulls up,
but after a brief conference,
it leaves also.
I watch until I’m pretty sure
the big show is over.
No signal from Richie,
so I climb into bed, fix the covers
how I like them, close my eyes.
I really want to fall asleep.
Last spring I was glum after Leslie,
my best friend, moved away midsemester.
Glum is not the word:
I was a basket case.
My grades plunged.
My drawings got weird,
as in ugly and tormented,
difficult to look at—even for me.
Drawings never lie.
WHO TO BE?
12:13 A.M. School starts at 9 A.M.
I have to figure out who to be.
Someone different than last year.
Smarter, cooler, and, despite my braces,
mysterious.
Good luck with that, Maisie!
You can’t be mysterious
with all that hardware,
all those rubber bands in your mouth;
you might as well have
railroad tracks in there.
Choo choo.