Our street was an undersized litter box 
with no modesty cover.
Danny swung hand-over-hand
across the electric wires
connecting our house to the Slade’s.
Walter Slade’s teenage scream cracked
open the summer haze
when I pushed my fingers into his whirring
push mower, which bit sharp
and splattered red jewels
against the green smell of cut grass.
I ran hard down the back alley
until I could taste all the rusty blades
of Lancaster’s east end.
But I was the least impulsive kid around.
My mother flipped her wig
at the doctor who blamed her for Danny’s
hot-dogging kicks all-day-long.
It was his high IQ that made him so dumb.
Like when he got the five-finger discount
on the bent slinky from the Slade’s 
backyard and Mrs. Slade raged
all afternoon until my mother lost it
and accused her of being German.
My mom, the self-proclaimed
“Irish Slob of Integrity,” by which she
meant her derangements were always 
on-point. Like when she marched up 
and down Clark Street beating a big bass 
drum after Mass that time when you stood 
up and said you didn’t see any point to men 
and why should you have to marry one?
Mom will one day imagine herself
a reincarnated Emily Dickenson—the part 
about keeping to her bedroom and speaking 
rarely, but with unexpected punctuation. 
She’ll say reincarnated too loudly into 
the screen of the confessional, causing 
the priest to give up darning his socks. 
So, Erin go Bragh, whispered the four-leaf 
clover, plucked from the small square 
of yard just ahead of Walter Slade’s mower.