Lots

Lots! In the Bronx there were lots,
lots carpeted with the burrs of the sweetgum,
heaps of them, and green apples, small as marbles,
profuse among the bottle caps and weeds.
You had to watch out for poison ivy and poison sumac,
mosquitoes, hissing alley cats,
broken glass, all manner of danger.
How we wallowed in the danger!—
as we blazed trails in our yellow Keds
or journeyed to the center of the scary earth
where we clambered and clamored and searched
and found what we found.

Row houses went up on my favorite lot.
New kids moved into them
and men in green laid tidy tiles of lawn.
It got so I preferred confinement,
in a book, in my room,
and sometimes in my father’s Chevy.
We’d cruise around the neighborhood
to admire the new developments:
churches, projects,
a white-bricked mall where they sold tires and liquor
and clothes we could afford.
“You’ll buy your prom dress there, Cathy,
your first lipstick, your . . ..”
…“ first bottle of champagne?”
I saw his point, I could barely wait
for tomorrow to happen.
I was in thrall to it,
to its coming, to becoming.
I didn’t miss the old lots at all.