6832. THAT WON'T BE NOTHING GETS HURT

THAT WON'T BE 

NOTHING GETS HURT

I walk unknown, like a stumble-foot loose warrior,

yet I still put out the garbage and do the laundry here.

That's way too much contradiction for me : Brooklyn

maybe instead. The five story walk-up, the old neighbor

who used to work in the Navy Yard when it made real things;

bombs and warriors and steel planks and ships. That corner

drivel diner with the nine-hour old gray coffee still sitting

in the pot, stewing all day, and people drinking it like it

was goldwasser or some elixir. Yhew! Kill me now.

-

Then along comes a Mary Ellen or something, with swagger.

She walks right past my young self and I have her. Now she's mine,

and always. We walk down, entering Prospect, and sit on a bench 

watching some tired kids play an old game of baseball. The dry

paths are base lines, worn out by nothing at all; and the backstop

stoops, it sags and wobbles. A foul ball could knock it over.

That won't be nothing gets hurt.