LAUNDROMAT

My mother would round up my brother and me, Laundry baskets on her hips, Like the National Geographic portrait of a mother Carrying water And her babies We would march foot by foot in the scorching heat to the Laundromat At the bottom of the hill Of the apartment cul-de-sac. The hill was massive. It would be slick with ice and snow in the winter And the big kids would sled down it On homemade toboggans Made of cardboard boxes And laundry baskets. Little rocket ships For the poor kids. We’d dive to the bottom and ricochet across the parking lot whеre the hill openеd up into lawless concrete and pavement. The wind would slice our cheeks raw red like sushi. And beautiful girls with beautiful button noses turned pink like peppermint candy would cheer from the landing. In the summer the hill wasn’t so charming. My little brother is dragging his sneakers across the curb nasty little thumbsucker He used a pacifier till he was 5 And even as he slept, his mouth would pucker and suck on nothing Oedipus baby. Mama’s boy. I spit mine out the first time someone tried to put it in my mouth I wouldn’t be silenced Infanticide! We are marching To the Laundromat. We arrive and immediately I run to a familiar friend. A big black cracked leather couch with yellow stung seeping from duct-taped holes. It looks like a giant monster in the dark corner under the decaying lights. I stick my arm inside And fear large teeth will bite it off at the elbow. I imagine myself pulling out my arm and it bleeding like a stick of salami. The first time I ever saw a whole lot of blood was when my babysitter Jessie invited her friends over to my house while my mother was at work. She told me to shut my trap and she’d let me watch any movie I wanted on TV. I picked The Shawshank Redemption. They sat outside the apartment complex and 3 boys arrived and smoked cigarettes on the porch One girl came inside. She was bleeding between the legs. Dripping in thick strips like the syrup I used to make strawberry milk She asked to borrow a pair of pants I was half her size I pictured her bleeding legs and imagined my arm dripping with the same crimson. I waved my pretend amputated stub around screaming for my mother. She didn’t turn around. She threw our still-damp clothes in the basket And we marched back up the hill.