Original Poem: Summer, 1980

Remembrance of Things Past or, Through The Past Darkly

i.

I was raised not only Catholic, but Irish-Italian Catholic, and not only Irish-Italian Catholic, but mostly Irish-Catholic (on my old man’s side) which meant more church and less community, more conscience and less Christmas Carols, more silence, less celebration. And so on.

Which is to say, I was seldom unaware of how fortunate I was, how much sinning I did (and shouldn’t be doing more of), how vast the space between where we all were and what we were striving to be, etc. I was also an altar boy, so in addition to allowance and report cards and plain old parent approval, I had priests I needed to impress. On most scorecards, I acquitted myself tolerably well.

But I was still incredibly sheltered, and if I was vaguely aware of how fortunate I was (two loving parents, an upper-ish middle class upbringing, a household absent of racism, violence, anti-anything except dishonesty, and an intolerance for injustice—which means, in my case, the good aspects of mid-to-late 20th Century Irish Catholicism outweighed the myriad less savory ones, including the things that happen to less fortunate altar boys).

At ten, I didn’t realize how much I didn’t realize, which itself is the inexorable sign of privilege. As such, during the summers my business was playing and business was very good, circa 1980. Growing up in a town with tons of free access to public pools was miraculous; having a handful of man-made lakes (and better, more privileged friends whose houses surrounded these watery signals of wealth) was too good to be true.

And, of course, it was. I was the kind of kid who had the vaguest awareness that things like rape, murder, cancer, and plain old death happened, but those were distractions; things that happened in the margins of my cheerful narrative. On occasion the world, as it does, would intrude with unwelcome reminders of things that happened, things that would complicate if not disrupt the mostly blissful reverie of sugar-fueled summer vacations.

ii.

My gratitude, as ever, to the amazing team at Exterminating Angel Press, for continuing to publish my work (and better, work from many other amazing writers; my poem, below, is included in their Winter 2025: Too Much Forgetting Issue; check them out and support their mission here).

Summer, 1980

Who am I to speak of the dead
or even dare to presume
it’s my place to do so?

Because I was there, aware
—even at ten—this was something
nobody would ever forget.

An era when news was on the news,
and word of mouth, always
the best way to convey everything

Bad, or good, or whatever it was
we needed to know, including places
to eat or fight or later, fuck.

A black boy drowned one day:
did it matter; is it important
that he wasn’t white?

It did, in 1980, and it does
today, but I was way too young
to grasp meanings or metaphors.

(A planned community; man-made lake,
Manicured lawns, pre-fab families:
America eating itself again & forever.)

And who’s being served by this
indulgence, however good my intent,
this milestone, this memory?

I’m not sure, but it feels wrong
not acknowledging a forgotten kid
we lost; to recall all our departed

Who endure in the past tense,
reclaiming lost things: days of being
a boy our business, the future not dark

So much as unseeable—a darkness discovered:
like a reflection or a limp body retrieved,
too late, from the bottom of a lake.