There you are, leaning against the building door. 
I remember how we knelt in the dirt 
shooting marbles in that game we called “Killer.” 

No one could beat the foreign kid with the long, 
long fingers, who taught us the game. 
I remember your mother, how tiny she was, 

and how your father never spoke. 
He seemed to exist in a cloud that grew darker 
when he got mad. Your brother was the same way, 

bull-necked and wild. I remember him punching out 
one of the Irish kids who called him “dirty Jew,” 
and how after that they shook and chose up sides for basketball.
                        

My mother worked in the city sometimes, 
and sometimes down the street. 
She was so happy with the telephone 
under her chin, laughing and talking 
in an upper room. I went to school, 
stomping with my big shoes. The French 
teacher hated me, made me sit in the hall. 
Every day it was a fight, cut knuckles 
or a bloody nose. My handwriting was bad, 
but I wrote a long report on the Civil War, 
cut pictures from a magazine. At tryouts 
for the baseball team, I snagged a long fly, 
tripped, and tore holes in the knees   
of my uniform. Caught the German Measles 
and got cut. My cousins took me out for ice cream, 
then drove around and slipped me beers. 
So what? they said. You’ll never make the Hall of Fame?