Tony Gloeggler

Solid Ground

During your two-minute face-time session
Jesse’s attention shifts between you
and his worker, Jimmy, just off screen
making him seem restless, unsettled,
more autistic. You pass a greeting, ask
simple questions and Jesse’s eyes dart
to his right, pause for a second before
he finds a prompt, permission to look
at you and speak. His eyes keep moving
side to side. You know how it feels to be
caught between two forces, trying to find
a semblance of balance. Your mother
surrounding you with unconditioned
love, your father always expecting better.
Sitting at your St Ann’s window desk,
a young  nun writing on the blackboard,
your eyes drifting out the window, the chalk
drawn strike zone on the building’s brick
wall, cross-taped stickball bat resting
on your shoulder, lifting it an inch, two,
as the pitcher rears back, your fingers
tightening your grip, bat meeting
the thigh high Pensie Pinkie pitch
with a line drive thwack while Sister
Carolina diagrams a complex sentence.

You and Erica lying on a picnic blanket,
talking across a restaurant table, driving
in her car, singing along to Springsteen
songs, hand in hand down the block,
kissing at the corner, falling into bed,
sleeping side by side, night after night,
fitting so easily together, all in love.
Her friends, her parents, weekend
parties, jobs, kids, apartment, house,
the future, an awkward, too often,
unspoken struggle for you. Jesse interjects
the dates he wants you to visit next,
landing him firmly on his solid ground,
the thing he wants, needs, counts on,
believes in. This time, it’s December 11
and 12, 3 days, 2 nights as usual. Realizing
you’re lying, you nod, agree anyway.
He doesn’t understand Covid, travel
restrictions. He misses bus loops,
Crow Books, peanut butter spread
on a Breugger’s onion bagel, no toast,
Waterworks Food & Drink, apple juice
with ice, chicken fingers, French fries
extra hot, one big snack from Commodities,
all the things you do on your visits
and maybe he misses you, too. You miss
intimacy, you and Erica, you and Jesse,
when there were only two people
alive and you were one of them.

Previously published in New York Quarterly

Testament

Reading the draft of my last
will and testament, all twenty
one pages, underlining the parts
I don’t fully understand, I feel
like I shouldn’t be wasting
whatever time I have left
on this. It should be simpler,
a page or two of clear instructions
leaving what’s left over to whoever
I want if I died today on my way
to catch a half-priced matinee,
rushing across the Boulevard
against the light in a hit and run,
slammed to the curb, face down,
motionless, bystanders shouting,
sirens blaring, swirling red lights.

My eighteen years younger brother
Jaime who gave me a kidney, six
bonus years of life and counting,
is the executor and he better not die
before me. Each of his kids, will get
thirty percent: Lexie, who I enjoyed
annoying at the Thanksgiving table
with too many questions, teenage eyes
rolling as she lifted another forkful
of macaroni and cheese to her mouth,
Daniel, sitting on the couch, showing me
his sketch pad of superhero drawings,
beating me in backyard cornhole even
though I tried my best to beat his butt.

I pause, think about the daughter or son
I might have fathered, three girl friends
I sometimes miss, wonder if I had learned
to compromise, loved more unselfishly
I’d feel less alone. Getting up to stretch.
my legs, I open the refrigerator, a cabinet,
grab a fistful of pretzel sticks, fill a cup
with peach iced tea still hoping to find
a good home for my books and CDs.
The rest will go to Jesse, set up in a special
needs fund that the lawyer promises
won’t affect his Medicaid benefits to keep
his happy life full with ski passes, trips
to water parks and favorite restaurants,
monthly massages and maybe make it
a bit easier for me, especially his mom,
to breathe, sleep through the night thinking
of all the mornings he’ll wake up, look out
the side window of his new house, ask
his caregiver, Mom’s car back soon?

Previously published in San Pedro River Review

Some Long-Ago Summer

Once upon a time I slept with a woman
who worked a few months at the group
home I run, but only after I fired her
for a no call no show weekend that left
the shifts severely understaffed. Next day,
we ran into each other on the subway,
rode through Manhattan together,
hugged goodbye. Four days later,
Denise waited for me outside work, went
all the way home with me. After fucking
the night away, we went to the diner
for breakfast. Grits for her, home fries
for me. We ended up at the schoolyard.
She took me down low, bumped me
with her lovely ass, while I tried
to ignore my hard on. I kept the score
close, but always won. She was younger,
I was older. I had money, she had none.
I was lighter, she was darker. She was
beautiful, I was not. We never could agree
on a radio station. We both liked Al Green,
but never the same songs. She loved
the back-to-back black shows on NBC
Thursday nights, I preferred Law
and Order. She never read my poems.
I felt her rap rhymes silly and forced.
She liked things rough and hard, I liked
to watch my cum slide slowly down
her dark inner thighs. I didn’t know
if she was hoping to get her job back,
looking for some kind of love or a few
weekends of outside the neighborhood
fun. I wasn’t doing any thinking at all.
Just last week, she was standing in line
at the corner bodega. Coffee for her,
Snapple for me. She still looked good.
Me, worse than before. Once, she said,
she saw me walking by in some long ago
summer as she sat in a shady park rocking
her baby for an afternoon nap. She said
I never looked her way, but she knows
if I did, I would have stopped, leaned
down for a soft quick kiss and told her
that her daughter was as beautiful
as she is. I smiled; knew she was right.

Previously published in Rattle

 

Tony Gloeggler is a life-long resident of NYC and managed group homes for the mentally challenged for over 40 years. His work has appeared in Rattle, New Ohio Review, Vox Populi, Gargoyle and Raleigh Review. His most recent book, What Kind Of Man with NYQ Books, was a finalist for the 2021 Paterson Poetry Prize and long listed for Jacar Press' Julie Suk Award.