Tennis Court Road
by Vincent Marksohn
“The rows of bags grew. A priest stood in the McEnroes’ yard, in the midst of the white bags, making the sign of the cross. He appeared to be praying.”
–Michael Winerip, New York Times: Jan. 27 1990
I like to remember my grandfather
as sitting in his sunroom
full of vhs tapes
fake turf flooring with a bocote wood desk for coins and taxes
all the orchids my mother gave him as birthday presents
displayed around the jacuzzi nearby
my grandmother across the house
getting ginger ale from the frigidaire in the garage
the amoeba pool out the window closed for winter
the garter snake that bit my cousin
dead in the snow
or my mother herself
a couple miles away
first hearing the sound of something big and dark
sailing over the frozen creek
with paint dripping off her brush
pauses
with a couple minutes gone
to call my pa
aluminum and wood shear
an albatross
or the sound of one sailing
everything silent along south st & audrey
everything crisp and rolling as january—
gravel on metal
the foggy hills of tennis court rd.
the bird descends
but only to lay eggs
my grandfather drawn away
from green books of tax code for a moment
to see what landed in his pool
and explosions of police lights
projecting on the bare trees
up the hill
on hills like I sledded down
kids with bloody foreheads
scream Mamá!
kids from bogotá
where I have never been
are roaming my grandparents’ yard
where I spend the fourth of july
and watch my father
grill steaks
and now I sit in the sun room
wondering which video tapes fell off the shelves.
Vincent Marksohn currently resides in Brooklyn, NY. He is a graduate of the University of Vermont and Co-Editor in Chief of The Cause Arts Quarterly. His work also appears in Cocktails at the Apocalypse (Ra Press). His poems often imagine historical or familial experiences he was unable to witness. Vincent hails from a small fishing village on Long Island’s muddy North Shore and although he’s caught many fish, none were in the vicinity of home.