Birthday Party, 1983

The sun is playing hide and seek

with the clouds today

and I

am a sliver of light,

showing myself

in Kodak-framed intervals:

Beaming alongside the beagle

my brother named Cujo

as we both await a taste

of Miss Mooney's famous

jam-filled cake

topped with frosted-pony flair

to please the city girl

who swooned for wiry forelocks.

Posing with a new purple Huffy

— destined to be adorned

with bright plastic “spokies”

clinking in chorus against

spinning tire rims.

My baby-tooth grin gleams against

syrupy skin stained

by the collusion of sun and southern Italy,

topped off by a curly-q pigtail

swinging low and slow

like my father’s heavy bag

in the garage.

Seven years this July,

I stand nearly new

in a rectangular patch

of frontage green

that never grows tall

against our home’s

weathered gray shingles.

The sun is playing hide and seek

on midsummer's 22nd day

when Mommy and Daddy

rejoice in their creation.

And I am burning bright.