Free Gabriel by Edward Hirsch Page B

way and that
    The mohel arrived at my parents’ apartment
    With a little black suitcase of instruments
    It was barbaric but it was our barbarism
    At the American Academy in Rome
    Our friends threw a black-and-white party
    Like Truman Capote he wore black and white booties
    There were
Welcome Gabriel
signs in the rafters
    The classicists drank gallons of red wine
    And hoisted him up like a trophy
    Gelsa the Italian nanny overdressed him
    And took him all over Trastevere he was known
    At the butcher shops the dry cleaners the coffee bars
    He had become the unofficial mayor
    Of the neighborhood waving from his stroller
    At shopkeepers who waved and shouted
Ciao Gabriele
    When he learned to crawl he pulled himself
    Forward on his arms a little at a time
    As if he were climbing Arizona Beach on D-day
    We strapped him into the car seat
    And drove around for hours
    Trying to get him to sleep
    There were other parents nodding
    To each other on the road I remember steering
    Clear of the trucks veering down Highway 59
    Give him a wing and a propeller
    And he’ll launch
I joked
    When he hurled himself out of his crib
    It was no joke when he twitched
    And twisted in his sleep we marveled
    That he never stopped moving
    I can make out a man pushing a stroller
    Through Rice Village on Sunday morning
    Dew on the grass mist on the windows
    The moon a crescent in a children’s book
    The streets vacant the parking lots empty
    Everyone in the city slept but us
    Why all the tears
    Oh blow Gabriel blow
    Go on and blow Gabriel blow
    At the diner we set him up in a high chair
    Where the little pasha shrieked
    And littered the floor below
    While Little Richard mimicked a drum intro
    From the speakers above
    A-wop-bop-a-loo-bop-a-lop-bop-bop
    In the end it becomes a blur
    Oh blow Gabriel blow
    Go on and blow Gabriel blow
    Issa recalled how a young priest
    Slipped crossing a bridge
    And fell into the torrents of a river
    People searched with lighted torches
    Until they found him wedged between rocks
    And carried him home on a litter
    His parents wept they wept bitterly
    In front of everyone and even the old priests
    Cried until their sleeves were soaked in tears
    When the boy was cremated two days later
    Issa tossed flowers into the flames
    And watched them seeping into the sky
    He lost three baby boys in infancy
    He named his daughter Sato
    Hoping she would grow in wisdom
    She was pure moonlight beaming
    From head to foot a butterfly
    Resting her wings on a sprig of grass
    He believed his two-year-old flitted
    In a special state of grace
    With divine protection from Buddha
    But he was wrong he could not bear
    To see her body swollen with blisters
    In the clutches of the vile god of smallpox
    His wife cried at her death he did not
    He tried to escape he could not
    Cut the binding cord of human love
    The world of dew
    Is the world of dew
    And yet and yet
    I pulled to the side of the road
    When he announced that we bought him
    From a special baby store
    He came home from preschool
    And opened the refrigerator
    Where’s my fucking milk
    It was not his birthday
    But he kept blowing out the candles
    On his cousin’s cake
    He wheeled his tricycle up and down
    In front of the house in a rage
    You’re not my parents
    Sometimes Gabriel and our dog raced
    Back and forth across the museum lawn
    Until Rocky got tired out
    Curators paused to watch him run
    With so much energy he was like a wound top
    He could almost fly a kite when there was no wind
    In those days we did not have leashes
    Or ropes for our children in airports
    We skipped along behind them
    No runway or landing pad
    No nursery or laboratory
    No public or private school
    Would ever be able to hold him
    It was like giving a tropical storm
    Some time out on land
    It was as if a TV show ran constantly
    In his mind the innocent kid
    Kept breaking out of prison
    He was a little Bartleby
    Of the nursery he despised kindergarten
    And preferred not to
    He clung to the couch he held fast
    To the chair we