The girls upstairs and i sometimes played house
or secret agents or whatever
was on TV we couldn't get enough of
Annie was a year older, and Debbie a year
younger, and Monica light years beyond us all
and was always nicer to me than her sisters
and would say hello and wave on her way out
dressed in tall shoes, short skirts, stiff hair & make-up
greeted by straight-looking boys in their father's elegant cars
Annie owned little statues of Davy Jones &
Bobby Sherman & Ringo Starr and subscribed
to Seventeen magazine and Teen Beat and owned a hi-fi
that she played 45s on with a record-changing arm that
she could pile up the latest hits which kept dropping
playing one saccharine tune after the next
i loved Annie, and maybe Debbie loved me, and we all
admired Monica, and at night when i was sent home
to our small basement apartment where i lived with my
newly divorced mother who was seldom ever there
where i would ignore my homework and draw pictures
of superheroes and watch TV while listening for my mother
driving up so i could hop into bed and pretend to be asleep
i would often hear Mr. & Mrs. Mann upstairs
Mr. Mann would shout and Mrs. Mann would scream or
cry and sometimes i'd hear something break or a loud crack
followed by more sobbing, and i'd worry about the girls, and
whether Monica had come home yet, or what Annie or Debbie
did while their father yelled and their mother cried and
threw things, and i'd think about my parents
and how ehy had never fought like the Manns
Mrs. Mann emerging in the gray morning
wearing dark glasses, hours after Mr. Mann had left for work
with Annie and Debbie heading out for school shortly after
when I would try and catch up
so we could all walk together in silence
— Larry Crist