"Growing Up Without a Last Name" By Bruce Cohen

What about that Pecan tree that shakes because it was plantedSo close to the railroad tracks every time a boxcar passes?This Devil's Night I plan to bury a shitload of tulip bulbs inMy neighbor's yard and tick-down the seasons to his spring-surprise.What are you going to be? My Halloween costume is New EnglandDrizzle in drag, precipitation passing itself off as human. I shall enterA barbershop, splash Witch Hazel on every new buzz. I shall extortCandy door to door, divvying it up, keeping the name-brand chocolates,Giving away the unwrapped. To all conversations my response is:Anything you say because all of our lives have been tricked, some notSo arbitrarily. As adults we steal hotel soap and plush bathrobesAnd I'm bone-weary, carrying my dead father piggy-back for his treats.Emergency Exit signs in movie houses, bricked-up, but I loveThe antiquated click-clack dark of projection rooms whereEveryone's home movie has been arbitrarily spliced.That's why memories are so difficult and surreal, the overexposedFace of my biological old man slapped onto Aunt Sylvia's body.I hung out at Fred's pool hall, snorted white power off the sink,Blew weed in this lavatory paradise with the fan on. To avoid Viet NamI added a digit to my draft lottery but one nervous pal nicknamed“The Mole” enlisted in the Marines when they were still consideredThe Marines and came home on furlough for Christmas all buffAnd spiffy, his shoes polished beyond belief and told us a taleOf an officer forcing him to swig a quart of sour milk then punchingHim square in the stomach until he puked the names of his entire family.That was not exactly the kind of man I aspired to be. In those daysWomen wore curlers and scarves in public before turning, SaturdayNights, into dolls. My name is so unfinished, when I deplete the phoneBook will go to the printer unchanged. I will be M.I.A. My sunnySide ups will congeal and someone will snub a cigarette finale intoThe yolk at the 24-hour diner and become the new regular on my stool.My father brings back the shrinking slivers of mostly dissolved soapIn his stolen bathrobe. They demand to know, at the front desk, what room,How many nights ago? Since he forgets, they ask, what is your last name, Sir?