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BECAUSE OF MY MOTHER’S JOB
by Barbara Reiher-Meyers

I was free to follow my brother
through the streets of Queens,
explore hallways laden with Lysol
that the super slopped around.

We climbed stairwells to tarred roofs,
where David and I spat down on passersby.
We’d go from roof to roof,
down rickety fire escapes,
through streets and alleys
to the cool sweetness of Forest Park.

We ate wild onions from the mossy woods,
adding to that “peck of dirt”
Nana warned we’d have to eat before we died.

Mother never did know how far we wandered,
how many fences or third rails we mastered;
how we got so “punky-dirty” in the time
between three and six.

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