{"id":8376,"date":"2014-08-01T22:29:46","date_gmt":"2014-08-02T04:29:46","guid":{"rendered":"\/nashvillereview\/?p=8376"},"modified":"2015-02-14T14:44:31","modified_gmt":"2015-02-14T20:44:31","slug":"only-in-america-on-being-turned-around-at-don-kings-estate-ashtabula-county-ohio-cindy-king","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/archives\/8376","title":{"rendered":"Only in America: On Being Turned Around at Don King\u2019s Estate, Ashtabula County, Ohio"},"content":{"rendered":"

            1.
\n            \tI can\u2019t get the eye water to cry with<\/em><\/p>\n

A king was but a king in Cleveland: city
\n            \tof doctors who don\u2019t spank
\ncries into newborn citizens but hold them
\ninstead to windows, where the eyes first
\nopen to a landscape the color and weight of cement.
\n            \tListen: hear their cries
\njust below freight trains and sirens,
\n            \tbeneath crabgrass pushing through gravel and ash.<\/p>\n

            \t2.
\n            \tFrom the streets to the suites<\/em><\/p>\n

Who could say if his house was built on Iron and Sugar,
\n            \tif forty acres and a wife could be had for two fists, fingers curled
\ninto a happy family of pain?
\n            \tMidas, magician, forever spinning
\nmoth-chewed mittens into golden gloves…<\/p>\n

Student of Superior and St. Clair, a quick study
\nhe was of hunger, hope, and despair
\ncrawling their sidewalks and standing in gutters.
\n            \tFrom peanuts to pies, numbers
\nto nightclubs, swiftly he was schooled in running,
\nlearning the speed by which the business
\nof booze and brass bands becomes one of blues,
\n            \tbrass knuckles and blood.<\/p>\n

Who knew of a second Caesar’s Palace,
\none that grew out of nothing
\n            \tbut bluster, swagger, and cigar smoke,
\nas if he blew a bit of Las Vegas
\nto the woods of Windsor, Ohio?<\/p>\n

Windsor, whose gardens host bouts
\n            \tof depression and spiders spar
\nwith flies, where a squash blossom opening
\ncan be considered a main event.
\n            \tSnow collects Corinthian columns,
\nrides the white split rail to pass the winter time.
\nHe too could vanish into whiteness,
\nlike a pinch of salt
\nin a mountain of flour,
\nhide his nakedness here
\n            \tamong concrete deities\u2014
\nApollo, Ares, Aphrodite\u2014quiet
\nas a clock face, dressed in nothing
\n            \tbut snow.<\/p>\n

            \t3.
\n            \tI didn\u2019t serve time. I made time serve me.<\/em><\/p>\n

My mother is a nurse
\n            \tfrom the waist down, white pants,<\/p>\n

shoes that mushroom the feet, that mute the self
\n            \tfor the sake of the sick and sensitive,<\/p>\n

and silence one\u2019s potential for noise.
\n            \tWith what grace she clears the divided<\/p>\n

lunch trays children have flooded
\n            \twith chocolate milk.<\/p>\n

My father, too, is clinical, white coat
\n            \tmaking him the only doctor to ever wear a hair net.<\/p>\n

Scalpel swapped for a cleaver, he has seen his share of blood–
\n            \tFor thirty years he has been breaking down<\/p>\n

sides of beef, pinning smiles
\n            \tto his lips before slicing pastrami<\/p>\n

into gory handkerchiefs for the ladies,
\n            \twomen who bring them to their eyes<\/p>\n

and through them, demand to see light.
\n            \tHe punches the clock, no matter how often, how hard,<\/p>\n

time delivers the knockout.<\/p>\n

            \t4.
\n            \tMy magic lies with my people ties<\/em><\/p>\n

Five people in my family,
\n            \tAs fingers on a hand in a fist\u2014me, the prodigal
\n                        \t\tin reverse, stainless and sterling
\n            \tat first, but rusting into self, like a switchblade<\/p>\n

slung from a speeding car,
\nButcher-princess, crown-roast coronation, complete
\nwith self-bleeding crown\u2014blue-collar blood pulsing
\nat wrists and temples,
\n            \tmy skin is too thin of a disguise.<\/p>\n

Rustbelt self, flyweight words buzzing in a glass
\njaw, lacking the strength to support a house
\n            \theavy with thought:<\/p>\n

I am the lead that blames the alchemist for failing
\nto make it golden, the little finger
\n            \tthat in time must learn to be the thumb.<\/p>\n

            \t5.
\n            \tYou don\u2019t get nothing from sleep but a dream<\/em><\/p>\n

Behind the wheel I am dreaming, directionless, fifteen miles from my childhood
\nhome. I am lost under cloud cover, its white reach
\nspanning the distance between our families\u2014<\/p>\n

            \tMy Civic does its duty, wheels spinning in your driveway,
\nseeking traction in gravel, the grit of your success:
\n                        \t\tthe blood you’ve spilled, the men you\u2019ve killed,
\n            \tand those you have saved…<\/p>\n

How you forgave the steel that failed our fathers,
\n            \tforged it into the Spirit of Ecstasy,
\nwho rolls open darkness,
\n            \tmaking way for Wraiths and Phantoms<\/p>\n

Cindy King<\/a><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

            1.              I can\u2019t get the eye water to cry with A king was but a king in Cleveland: city              of doctors who don\u2019t spank cries into newborn citizens but hold them instead to windows, where the eyes first open to a landscape the color and weight of cement.              Listen: hear their cries […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[17],"tags":[25],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Jypy-2b6","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8376"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8376"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8376\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10183,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8376\/revisions\/10183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}