Shoebox Heart

We boys

sat round a flip-topped

box

fondling reverently ancient

cardboard

and new plastic.

Our imaginations fired,

lust

and the first flush

of desire,

before girls,

Before Christ,

and women

and cars.

Before life became a trudge

through

a wasteland of earning

and not being enough,

not having enough,

though the mayonnaise sandwiches

for dinner

and our red dirty

Cugas

were an education

a-plenty.

 

Willie Mays was our

idol,

our non-absentee father,

though we settled for McCovey

and Killibrew

on week days.

A first Topps Mantle

crisp in our dreams,

through the pages of a Beckett

taught us of class

and caste.

Pete Rose,

that wild Irish

Red

batted down the doors

of the present,

while Gooden and Strawberry

held a promise

that like other oaths,

would never

be kept.

 

Mama.

Her blue sparkle

eyes crimson

and work heavy,

brought home small

magic

wax packs,

wearing her Anjolie

for a parade of worthless

suitors.

It's okay though...

 

It really is.

We made it out

and into another dimension.

One of us is a father now,

and the others

have found a home.

Our borders aren't bounded

by cardboard and glass.

Our horizons are lovely

even

under New Moons.

Within us are the years

well spent in hope

and

hardened fists.

Soaped on Sundays,

worked over drunk tanks,

ripened with wine,

softened by wisdom.

Lingering there

are treasures,

timeless as heartache,

beloved,

dusty and worn,

in my shoebox heart,

where good enough

was a damn sight better

than gone.