There’s my father walking from the blue
line station down the colosseum steps
of City Hall Plaza, one careful leg at a time,
on his way to the courthouse,
where he takes prisoners upstairs
and says all rise, to the court in session.
His knees are thick with worry,
the daily struggle reminds him
of his unsettled children, the steps
a kind of suffering he will take
later to the Arch Street church,
spend his lunchtime keeling
with prayers for all of us.
Was there a moment when I could feel
them, their touch on my shoulders,
a shake or a shudder I couldn’t explain—
a car accident, a big mistake, more
than my share of close calls?
Years later I walk these same steps
thinking of him, I don’t mean
the post college drunk walk after hours
in the Bell and Hand, or screaming with
a crowd of Celtics fans in 81 when Larry Bird
trash talks Big Mo in front of a championship
banner, but much later, as a parent myself,
an ordinary fall day, a paper cup of tea in my hand,
well past the morning shuffle,
the cool air blowing from the harbor
on Atlantic Ave, the empty plaza at rest,
and I think of those mornings
he struggled to walk on the cement
as worn as his aching knees,
each swollen step,
each thankless hour of worry and duty
draped on him like a curse,
and all those prayers he said
hovering overhead
looking for their station.

# # #

Kevin Carey is the Coordinator of Creative Writing at Salem State University. He has published three books – a chapbook of fiction, “The Beach People” (Red Bird Chapbooks) and two books of poetry from CavanKerry Press, “The One Fifteen to Penn Station” and “Jesus Was a Homeboy” which was selected as an Honor Book for the 2017 Paterson Poetry Prize. A new collection of poems “Set in Stone” is forthcoming in May of 2020. Kevincareywriter.com

Photo: Paul Hanaoka