I Have a Question

I have a question...
A little boy playing
on an indoor playground -
a wooden one,
dripping with paint,
yellow red blue,
on a rainbow swirl carpet,
under rectangles
you can push up on
and imagine
crawling to freedom!

I have a question;
I am confused.
I find myself
alone
in the dark.
I have been sleeping
in a crib.
I am in the nursery
with the babies.
But I am four years old.
I remember now.
She threw me in here
because
I am a “baby.”
I have trouble
identifying colors.
I don’t belong
with the kids my age.
I guess I am
where I belong;
alone
in the blackness -
I am only a baby.
I mustn’t tell Mommy.

Mommy,
Miss Sweet
taught us colors today.
I don’t know my colors.
“Well,
I’d say we better buckle down
and learn them.”

I have a question:
Kirby’s mommy,
at daycare,
said it calmed her down
when he lay his hand
on her forehead;
May I?
“Well, that’s stupid.
Don’t bother me
when I’m practicing the organ.”

That was stupid.
I got confused.
The door was open
and so much light,
so much air
was getting in;
things were getting
blown around.
I’ve got to keep the door closed,
the light out.
I am supposed to be a baby,
left alone in the black.

I’m a baby.
I’m in fifth grade now.
But I’m a baby.
I’m confused.
I have a question.
May I go to the bathroom?
Now I’m free
to escape
to the quiet
of the lavatory,
where my head can rest.
“What are you doing in here?!”
Going to the bathroom,
Mr. Mueller.
“Bull!
Why can’t you do any work?”
I don’t understand.
I am confused.

Mommy,
I have a question.
I’m confused.
The psychiatrist at school
wrote to you,
saying I was
“an unexceptional child.”
That means
I’m unacceptable,
right?

I have a question.
“Son,
I wish I could do more,
but you’re on your own.”
Then my dad is gone.
I am alone
in a hotel room
in Brooklyn Heights.
It’s like moving in
to an unclean
doll house
in someone’s attic,
since there’s no room
for anything
anywhere
save my body
on the bed.
I never believed in Hell
‘til I felt this heat.
And there’s duct tape
on the air conditioner.

I have a question.
“Welcome to New York”
says a sweating
young Asian man
in the hallway,
by the elevator.
I have a question:
Is the elevator running?
Am I trapped?
This place is
a palimpsest
of the most elegant
hotel
in New York -
a giant,
beautiful
dark-skinned negro
in a snow white tux
with gold buttons
used to open the door
for sweethearts
white as his tux
and his grin,
directing them
to Glenn Miller
in the ballroom.
Now this place
is as kingly
as their bones
in the ground;
it is fouled
in layer
upon layer
of discontinued colors
I can’t quite identify:
and soon by the terror
of those who look
toward the Manhattan sky.
I have a question.
I am confused.
I want to push through the ceiling
and escape from this place

I have a question.
I must not let Mommy know.
I will show her
I don’t have a question.
I will show them
I am not confused.
I belong with the big kids.
Yes!
I told you so!
The Towers
exploded,
and that didn’t
stop me!
The New York Post
said I was “intelligent”
and “sensual.”
No one could argue
with the Post!
“Intelligent”!
Any questions?
I don’t have one.
The Towers fall,
I rise.
They fall,
I rise.
The blackness
swallows everything.

I awaken
in the dark.
I remember now.
I got thrown in here.
I can’t identify colors,
I’m a baby
and need to be alone
in the blackness.