“NERO”

His pedigree is locked up inside a scrappy look;
For more than anything, haircuts make the point
That life imitates art.
The stylist cuts him as if he was a schnauzer;
A gruffy beard which reddens
In the summer
And gnarls black and white in winter,
Devoid of any hint of growing older…
I flat step with the imbalance of infirmity
When I leave the bus which chokes with struts and
Axels softened by Brooklyn pot holes.
My cane is a shillelagh
Thorned with the dervish trickery of a Lean Shee;
A fairy mistress possessing poets with the
Unspeakable fear
of drawing a blank when they’ve a mind to write.
And so I master this genie by remembering how fine
A fighting stick an inch wide Black Thorn makes
By enamoring younger men
Whose arrogance is now camouflaged by the need
To pivot from a fall…
Home at last to a crowded living room where
Nothing moves in the gun grey days of winter.
He is there at the window, propped up on
The bedding pillows to scan for the blue and white bus
Which he hears two blocks away.
A charcoal black toy poodle, or so they say,
But a stranger to salons which paint acrylic nails and ribbonize
his scruff…
I adopted him from a Puerto Rican family
Who only spoke Spanish.
He followed me everywhere as I’m certain now
Only to learn the language…
He’ll be ten in August, but his fiery
Black eyes prod me to throw the Spaulding
Continuously, which he catches like
Minor league ball players
In the public parks of the lower East side.
He even smiles with protruding lower teeth;
Lippng over his upper canines,
But when so inclined he flicks a switch blade growl
When the gauntlet is laid down…
There’s but a flickering flashlight in the days that wait for me.
The dialysis reminds me of the resignation of luckless souls on
Star Trek
Who were umbilicated to the Borg.
Nero knows no such gloom.
He tries to trick me when I’ve forgotten
He already ate.
He neither fears nor hates the inevitable with an adolescent
State of mind
That was never bruised by lasting sadness.
He’s a renegade of small size which sees no
Sense in retreating into nothingness at all.
He disarms me of the cane which he sees no reason for.

Ken Siegelman
Brooklyn Poet Laureate, February, 2009