Tony Gloeggler: Blessings

The moral of these stories is
that all blessings are mixed
—From John Updike’s TOO FAR TO GO

These days we make
appointments to play
slow motion basketball
in Long Island City, sit
on benches to catch
our breath and guzzle
bottled water while we talk
about my calves swelling
like a pregnant woman’s,
taking Lasix and pissing every
fifteen minutes until Tom
breaks in, begins to tell us
about last Thursday, walking
down some specialist’s long
hallway for the second time,
jerking off to vintage black
and white porn, trying
to find out if it’s his sperm
preventing him and his girlfriend
from going forth, multiplying.

Grot describes the screams
and moans his wife made
in the delivery room,
how scared he felt holding
his daughter the first time,
worrying he might drop
the tiny slippery thing
and realizing he knew
nothing about raising
a kid, that he was saying
a final goodbye to his old
simple life as he watched
the doctor stitch the C section
closed. He winces, picks up
the basketball and starts
telling us how he rushes
home every day from work
and he and his wife lie quietly
on their queen sized bed
with their dark haired girl
between them, asleep, forming
some kind of blessed trinity.

We take the court for the last
game of the day thinking
of friends and siblings
who feel desperately helpless
as a son flounders through
first grade already wondering
if he’s good enough, a daughter
shutting her bedroom door
struggling not to cut herself.
My friends know all about my ex
girlfriend and her autistic son
who rarely speaks and only
in quick brash phrases when
he sees something he wants
to touch or eat immediately.
They know I flew into Portland,
spent the July 4th weekend
with him and they both nodded,
understood what it meant
when driving back to the airport
Jesse leaned forward, tapped
his mom’s shoulder, clearly
said, “Tony, come again August.”

Copyright 2023 Tony Gloeggler. First published in Exit 7.

Tony Gloeggler’s books include What Kind of Man (NYQ Books, 2020). He is a life-long resident of New York City.