The top of Manhattan Island
-- not, though, the top of
the borough of Manhattan
(but that’s another story)
where the Indians fleeced
Peter Minuit.
Fields for baseball, football,
and Irish sports
Courts for basketball, tennis,
handball, and horseshoes
(we called those “pits”).
and, the “woods” – a forest with
paths, caves, and hidden places
where we learned to smoke
(implanting cancer cells into
many of our lungs) and
drink (beginning the deterioration of
brain and liver cells for many).
and couples often moved from the
benches in the park to the woods
for more privacy .. but, in those days,
there was no fucking (or, at least,
none that I knew about).
We would have been better
off fucking (if we had known
about safe sex) – some of us
who weren’t fucking later
died of lung cancer or cirrhosis.
It’s still a wonderful park
“Inwood Park” was printed in Esther, No. 1 of Inwood Indiana. Pick up the paperback from Prolific Press; the stories and poems published online are free to read here.
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