Frenchtown Summer Read Free

to do.
An ancient elm,
the cemetery's solitary tree,
guarded the entrance,
its benevolent shade
falling on the seven sad stones
that marked the graves
of the St. Jude nuns who died
far from the France of their birth.
We always stopped first
at the small stone
bearing the name of my cousin Theo,
who had lived only twelve minutes
twenty years before.
Marielle LeMoyne's marble angel
made us pause and look around
as if we were being watched
by whoever scrubbed her angel
free of bird droppings,
neatly combed the grass
and placed geraniums there
for Memorial Day.
As usual, we hurried past
the gray mausoleum
of the Menier family,
still not brave enough
to peek in the stained-glass windows
to see if the coffins
were visible.
We always ended our visits
at the Edges,
that unconsecrated ground
at the far end,
with the lonesome graves
of those who did not die
in the state of grace,
had taken their own lives
or abandoned their faith
or disgraced themselves
in ways I could only imagine.
No tombstones here,
only small tilted markers,
names long ago faded,
or no markers at all,
only lumps of earth
often decorated with debris.
We looked in vain
for the grave of Joe Latour,
who years ago had hanged himself
in a cell at the Monument police station
after his arrest
for drunken behavior
one Sunday morning
in front of St. Jude's Church.
He used to wander
the streets of Frenchtown,
weeping sometimes,
sleeping in Pee Alley,
which, Uncle Med claimed,
he baptized
on many occasions.
    We were always glad
to leave the cemetery,
not looking behind us,
and I wondered
why we went there
in the first place.

Like setting a clock,
my mother adjusted
the octagonal card in the window,
telling Mr. Harrold, the ice man,
when he arrived on the street
how many pounds we needed—
fifty, seventy-five, one hundred.
Mr. Harrold wore a rubber apron
on his back
onto which he swung the blocks of ice
with huge tongs.
He lumbered up the stairs
without even grunting,
beads of sweat
like chips of ice
on his cheeks,
dumped the block into
the icebox in the kitchen.
    My mother always offered him
a glass of Kool-Aid,
lime or orange.
    Raymond, Alyre and I
waited for him to return
and when he arrived
he wielded the same pick
to shave wedges of ice
from the mounted blocks,
and handed them to us.
The ice, stingingly cold,
burned my lips and fingers
but at the same time
brought delicious
tingling to my tongue.
As Mr. Harrold went on his way
I stood with the other kids
in the pungent fragrance
of horse dung
and knew bliss
in a sliver
of ice.

I emerged from Dr. Sampson's office,
(“The Eyes Have It”)
blinking into the sunlight,
and suddenly everything
had sharp edges,
the corners of buildings,
the curbstones,
a leaf tumbling
from the maple in Monument Park.
The glasses,
with steel frames,
were a strange weight on my nose.
A world suddenly vivid,
people's faces across the street
no longer blurs.
I saw the red spiderwebs
in the cheeks
of the cop directing traffic,
looked up to see
white clouds
clearly outlined
as if pasted on a page
in a child's coloring book.
And looked down to see
cracks of lightning
frozen in the sidewalk,
a shard of green glass
from a broken bottle
gleaming like a distant planet
fallen into the gutter.
    Reeling as if drunk
on Uncle Philippe's home-brewed beer,
I knelt down to watch
a glistening ant
at the curb's rim,
and in my glorious generosity,
my state of grace,
did not squash it underfoot,
the world too sweet
and brightly lit
for anything,
even an ant,
to the today.
    The glasses were a miracle,
bringing the sweet
gift of sight
until
in front of Laurier's Drug Store,
Ernie Forcier
placed his hands on his hips
and yelled to me
across the street:
    “Hey, Four-Eyes.”

Love came to Frenchtown
in the middle of June
when Sister Angela arrived
on the last day of school
to teach piano
at the convent.
Meeting her one hazy afternoon
as I took a shortcut
through the convent gardens,
I fell into the violet pools
that were her eyes
and signed up for summer lessons,
soon