FROM DEBRIS

MY FATHER'S LAST HARLEY

A yellow photo curls in my hand:
my dad,
leaning against his '47 Harley
muscular arms across white T-shirt
brass Golden Gloves belt buckle
catches the sun
crossed ankles and sharp grey pants -
no trace of Interstate mud at 17
or Army drab - trousers nearly fit for
a married man.

I'd remembered him as always looking for his red truck.
His shadow, I'd walk endless used car lots with him
and witness his haggling with salesmen. Always, the
perfect red pickup would be just on the next lot,
further north or south on Western Avenue.

"Don't you never volunteer for nothin'," he'd say
Ex Cathedra, rising from in front of the TV
and shuffling off toward the bedroom; and I, at 16, would walk
all 30 miles of the Hunger Hike. After:
"That's one tough kid I've got."

He didn't say much
when I left the South Side
for the North Shore - but that winter
when he saw Tevye wave
his eldest daughter off to to Siberian exile,
Mom said he cried in his popcorn.

RUE DE HUCHETTE, MARCH 1976

From my hotel room above the Algerian restaurant, I walk down
the narrow steps and out onto the side street. It is more a
cleavage in heaped medieval stones that a street lined with green
plate glass and pensions. Dawn breaks. From some shadow an
old man is touched by a fresh shaft of daylight and begins to
sweep the cobblestones with his bundled twig broom. Across the
way, the Boulangerie is methodically opening. I can smell the
thick sweetness of crusty bread. Madame is the first shopkeeper
to open her door, fling her pail of water onto the shop's stoop,
and sweep the remains into the street. I continue down to the
main street, past the frying Tunisian donuts and newly chalked
daily specials in Vietnamese/French/English, and out onto the
bright boulevard. There, that man from the disco last night, brass
in pocket, finally makes his way home. A massive St. Michael
directs traffic. And those ubiquitous billboards: the great white
shark devours the water-skier, Jack Nicholson models a
straitjacket, wonder make-up for "all complexions." Thin young
girls hurry past in tight jeans, cowboy boots, hennaed hair, and
twelve layers of bulky sweaters.

EAST OF ASHLAND

There, just east of Ashland
with its potholes, busted Budweiser bottles,
rusted stop signs, and Augie's two-pump gas station,
I lead the caravan of bicycles
down towards the docks of the Calumet-
Saginaw Canal. We stopped, and mapped out
other journeys for ourselves.

We named them angels - those bargemen
who waved and kept going.
We each kept one eye cocked,
meaning to leave Blue Island far behind.

We lived further west than Ashland,
almong the south bank of the Canal -
where our teacher said
you could still find Indian arrowheads -
but east of Gypsy Town and the trailer park
lit up like a dime store Bethlehem by Clark Refinery.

Cheryl headed out first, and went south -
Southern Illinois University - and I trailed her overland
to visit, no seats on an overbooked "City of New Orleans."
Her college friends gathered, showed us
the rock formations of Granite City National Park
the white and green river town of Cape Girardeau.

Both of us really weren't surprised by the sites;
we'd always known they'd be there
when we'd dreamed on the banks of the Cal-Sag Canal
down there, east of Ashland.