Cincinnati or: The place I had a home

Cincinnati or: The place I had a home.

Careening down the highway,
275 loop eastbound past the Kenwood rd. exit.
I pause
and light a cigarette.

There is no longer solace on this
slick black sober road or in the
pond shallows I pass that sit awestruck
like the men who saw the suicide, silent and static:
in front of my red brick and green-blue
bottle glass highschool I see fleeting.

The tall white oak decaying in the
middle of its front entrance stands a
pillar of what education?
I “learned” by sitting in beige desks
with the chair still attached like shackles
cutting into my spine rather than my wrists.

I never bled, but each day left the tan hallways
over the mismatched green and white tiles
through the dried yellow fields into my grey
car, rolling to Cornell road. Until I get back
to Lake Isabella, the place I would fish

when my father was still waking at
4:30 and was still walking into
my room.

The lake passed, I’m back to the yellow farmhouse
The one that’s stood since the civil war, the one
where Morgan’s raiders slept peacefully
in their burlap pop tents waiting.
The one that has a new neighbor
designed by the coats and sold to the
yuppies who just want their children
to attend my red brick and green-blue bottle glass highschool.

“Buy them a bicycle” I say as I flick my cigarette
in their yard- I learned more on Twightwee rd. past the Arby’s
by 84 lumber the time I realized the folded leather
that held me inside was lost, and the
six-pack I had in my hand was running out.

You can’t bike back up Loveland Maderia. You just
can’t fit between the corvettes and cadillacs. You have to
get back to the bike path with the fresh asphalt.
The one that takes you all the way to Morrow past the old
ammunition factory where my grandparents live. You
have to take it back to the Pony Keg where they sell
to underage children.

You can ride back down Loveland Maderia sure,
but only through the Walgreen’s lot and past the
Speedways that were Marathons.
Then you walk next to the 275 loop back to
bike trail and past Lake Isabella, where my
father took me to fill the air in my bike tires
the air pump neatly stationed out of place
by the boat rental. Just like a sun cap in the
moon’s souvenir shop.

He should never have put any air in those
tires. Then I’d never had lost myself
and now coming down the 275 loop
wouldn’t feel so much like returning to my coffin:
mahogany, vinyl, and cold.