Tony Gloeggler
UNDERCOVER
Italian ladies draped in lace
placed coins in collection plates,
lit green novena candles.
German Shepherds sniffed
the wooden crutches, nuzzled
against my leg braces. Mothers
grabbed their children's hands,
whispered, "Don't stare."
When they walked away,
I flipped them the finger,
shut my eyes and turned
my braces into airplane wings,
my crutches into machine guns.
I swooped down, fired
round after round and flew
home with my thumbs raised.
I sat on our fire escape
making no sounds and trying
to blend into the background
like a spy. I imagined it was me
picking teams for stickball,
hitting Spaldings two sewers long
and racing around the bases
like a skinny black kid.
Nighttime, I slipped under
the covers with a flashlight,
wrote in tiny notebooks. Careful
not to let my pencil scratch
against the paper. Afraid
someone could see that spec
of light, read my words. Afraid
they had ways to make me talk.
Tony Gloeggler a life-long resident of New York
City. His work has recently appeared in Rattle,
The Raleigh Review, Chiron Review and The Paterson
Literary Review. His books include One Wish Left (Pavement
Saw Press) and The Last Lie (NYQ Books). Until the Last Light Leaves is
forthcoming from NYQ Books; it focuses on Gloeggler's relation to an
ex-girlfriend's autistic son and his years of managing group homes for the mentally challenged.
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