*
As a seven-year-old boy I visited my grandparents on Manida Street in the Bronx. Now, I hear it is a historical district. It was a magical place for me back then. In my career as a poet, I have written a number of poems about the Bronx.

Manida Street Bronx 1962

As a boy
I viewed it
as magic
far
from the antiseptic
of the Long Island
suburbs.

Yes
horse carts
still on the
street
the croon
from the vendors,

“get your tomatahs
for your tomatah!”

And with my grandmother
the butcher
wrapped in white
a freshly butchered
limp whole chicken
looking
for all the world
like some comic
prop
in a burlesque
comedian’s bag.

My grandmother
told me
a chicken lived
a whole week
with his cut off
I loved her..
I believed
her.

At night you
would hear
the occasional
cry from the
girl’s reform school
across the street.

I would sneak down
to our tenement basement
to an ancient, defunct
nightclub
wrapped my self
in a spaghetti of confetti
and looked at the empty
whiskey bottles
the dusty elegance
of cocktail glasses.
Imagining
the Prohibition
revelers.

Such ghosts.
I prayed
I would
never have
to leave.

— Doug Holder