"South Mason Street, 1976" - Robert Lee Kendrick

 

"South Mason Street, 1976" - Robert Lee Kendrick

 

My mother’s first name was dammittohell.

Her middle was Pearl.

She filled afternoons with Winston 100s,

South Pacific,& Carousel,

singing the female leads to her vacuum.

 

My father came home from General Electric

& closed the garage door behind him

spending his evenings with chisel & saw,

cutting joints to lock wood at right angles,

setting them with the force of a vise.

 

I’d pedal from Bloomington Jr. High

to the pond at the end of the street,

traded cigarettes stolen from mom

for Hustler pages from Doug next door.

 

Dinners were quiet & short.

I cleaned the table & rinsed the plates

while he went back to his shop or Miller’s Tap,

& she sat by herself on the porch.

 

He kept his bench swept of sawdust,

polished his plate with a fistful of bread,

wiped his ’66 Coronet’s blue vinyl seats

clear of late night semen & sweat.

 

She folded my clothes in squares

& stacked them in boxes from Kroger,

filling the back of her Pinto.

 

One weekend a month I joined him

in his shop, building tables

to bring other families together,

beds for sleep & for love.

 

 

"South Mason Street, 1976" by Robert Lee Kendrick first appeared in San Pedro River Review.