Arms Up

Graphite on rag paper, 11” x 10”

Charles Cooper

EVICTION, 1956*

—

Yvonne

On a southbound summer walk

Passing The Gables after leaving Clark Park

I am stopped short, on a dime,

By a cliché, “frozen in time”.

There, second from the end

Of a childhood avenue, clean,

Quiet, still almost “Dick and Jane”,

Sits a homely Victorian,

A standout in a long anonymous

Row—not for beauty, but ugliness.

Sixty years ago, the porch was enclosed

Not in turn-of-the-century style

With twinkling windows like dining crystal,

But as a solid brick box, a proposed

Rental office, landlady’s supposed—

Totally legal—cool explosion.

An elder now, I can feel the isolation

Of the Granny I then knew on the corner

In her lively chitchat porch rocker

Shoved out of view, long before resurrection.

Shoved out. That too happened to me

When, colored the same, Madame Landlady

Kicked us into the cold, goods and all,

Despite Mother’s Asian flu, her newborn’s squall.

Rent paid, Daddy still lost the ground floor lease

With backyard, front porch liberties.

My childish world was blown in a blink:

Free library, my smart-girl fantasy rink.

My exit was not intimate, not thoughtfully unkind.

No after-school buddies left behind.

*In September 2020, the Center for Disease Control, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, halted rental evictions through the end of the year, citing evictions force people to move around and share housing, thus increasing risk of infection.