Staple in my Thumb
Our home was close to a skating rink
that was attached to an alligator farm.
And Pop did not react when Chris was making tea
in the coffee pot and spilled it down the front of him.
I had dropped a cinder block on my finger
and Gram poured peroxide on it.
Gram, to help me catch my breath,
told me the commotion was the germs dying.
Pop only showed emotion when we ran
away from him and he had to chase us.
I had a staple in my thumb nail and
wouldn’t let him take it out with
a pair of needle nose pliers.
He was pissed I was making a scene.
(Even if it was at home with no one to see.)
I ran past the pull-out couch that
Nana would use when she visited.
I crouched on the other side
and my Pop would only get so mad before he’d quit.
*
My cousins, my brother and I, had sat on the back of the couch leaning
into the wall and receiving temporary
tattoos by Iggy and my mother’s sister.
The adults got real tats.
Later my aunt’s children would set fire
to the room Chris and I shared—
It is still up for debate if her kids threw
the baby powder that was covering the room before
or after the fire.
I was so mad we opened that door
for my aunt’s family because they treated
Pop’s house like they’d never see him again.
I’d been to their house, a large studio, and they had
Mortal Kombat, but all the rooms were divided by sheets.
And there were too many snakes—
this is what I thought about all the time
I waited, side of the couch, staple in my thumb,
until my Gram got home to pull
the staple out.
*
My Pop thought I didn’t trust him and that’s not it.
My Pop worked on me like I didn’t have
any damn sense of feelings.
Gram would give me a story and go
easy.
Pop worked me so hard I had to pretend
to need to use the bathroom so I could
catch a break. I had to keep up
with Pop or wonder if I weren’t cut
from the same cloth.
My Pop accepted me back
after a neighborhood scrap
that nearly ended with my bike stolen.
Anytime my brother, Chris, and I fought
we had to know that you can’t win
them all.
The lesson was hard proven
when a step dad and then beloved uncle,
showed us that blood runs slow
in the cold and beat my brother
in his ribs like he belonged
to no one.
My brother belonged to me
and I didn’t know then to raise my hand
and share that burden.
The next time, I wouldn’t need a story,
these situations would just be life.
If I had to pull the staple out
with my teeth, I could.
~
Child Mothers
If all the homes were creaking
would the fathers mind the floor
boards or would they
leave in their socks?
Our father could always return to
us, but like a true con
it’s hard to turn
yourself in when no one can remember
your face.
Our mother, the living witness,
two-under-two by sixteen and left
for dead.
This house is his.
Our father goes
and waits
for us to leave
like we’re the last electric
bill from a previous house.
We do go, I’m told,
after the food ran out.
~
Empty Driveway
Gram was always working
the 11p.m.-to-7a.m. front desk
of the Best Western.
That’s how I’d sneak out the house through the front
window and walk the streets just to do it—
no one knew, but my brother.
He “put a stop to it”. (We were very young
and wouldn’t have known to think Ted Bundy
had killed down the street.)
I loved the sidewalk, it was warm
on my bare feet even though the
sun had been down for hours.
It wasn’t that I made the connection,
that my mom, years before, had gone
out this same window and altered her life:
Oh, I need to stop venturing out.
It was a game of tag and I wanted to tackle my brother.
He was standing on the couch
in the moonlight.
I flew at him chin-first. He hurdled
and I went through the glass smack into the sidewalk below.
~
Things I Learned Waiting in Hospitals
Stick your finger in every coin recess
on any device and chase the almighty
two-fer. Walk around the hospital
enough and you’ll find cash on the floor
only the old ladies will fight you for the money,
near the gift shop, the food court, is the hotspot.
Only now that I’m older do I realize what
two kinds of people would leave, or drop, money:
rushed or careless. There’s a mother somewhere who could
have taken her boys to the park, to the alligator farm,
to the arcade, to the skating rink, relieved them from
the place that teaches you to wait and select
what you hear, this one is for the grandmothers
that did their best, to families that walking side-by-side
is like a car, we don’t hold hand when we cross,
but I follow my brother so close I step on the heel of his shoe
and piss him all-kinds-of-ways off.
The grandmothers wheel the grandfathers, they look
like they are following
but they are leading.
~
Found Beauty
Found beauty in:
the lightning burst behind the tall,
dark buildings, that illuminated
the alley ways from the hospital
to the front street;
Found beauty in:
the heavy rain making a
grimy river spill into the drain
how everything may have looked
blue or that’s just the way I remember it
now—
Found beauty in:
the ledge that went ‘round the whole outer building,
and the doctor I imagined
smoking, crouched down there, daring,
and overlooking the ER bay.
Found beauty in:
going lower than the first floor,
even if the doors opened and the
terrifying word “morgue” was
advertised on the wall.
Found beauty in:
the dissertation summary posters
that hung the hallways’ walls
like a movie theatre.
I’d appreciated every drawn-on
ceiling tile, I was starting to
give myself temporary tattoos with
a ball-point pen.
Found beauty in:
seeing brilliant people coming,
meeting, and going in the atrium;
watching doctors of all kinds
meditating over cigarettes and coffee
in the bamboo courtyards.
Found beauty in:
the food-court Wendy’s line, where
soon to be widows’ leather purses
wafted up comforting and steady, cold smells
that mixed well with French fries.
When we stood next to the doctors, they’d fold their arms
at their diaphragm.
~
The Bastard That I Am
I could give you a daughter
and try forever-love.
Hard to say
if I’m a good one
genetically.
I want to be so many things.
Tried more times than lightning
to be grounded.
Made more mistakes than all the lost
bastards.
Forgot promises
felt good on days
only because of my ability
to forget.
I could give you a daughter
and guarantee nothing else
but I’d want everyday
to not be the bastard
that I am.
~
Michael Hammerle holds an MFA from the University of Arkansas, Monticello, and a BA in English from the University of Florida. He is the founder of Middle House Review. His work has been published in The Best Small Fictions, Split Lip Magazine, New World Writing, Louisiana Literature, Hobart After Dark, Maudlin House, and elsewhere. His writing has been a finalist for awards from American Short Fiction, Hayden’s Ferry Review, and Prime Number Magazine. He lives and writes in Gainesville, Florida.