The Joke

The Joke

Across the street
on Tuscaloosa Avenue,
West Palm Beach,
1956,
a faded olive-green
clapboard house
with a door
on the second floor,
no porch
no balcony in sight.

The boys
who lived there
said it was a widow's
door,
then laughed.

I stared at that door
when I played
in their yard
littered with huge,
oozing, ruby-throated mangos,
around whose flat seeds
the pulp was a tart delicacy.

But remained mystified
by the placement
of a door
with no platform
that could
lead to broken
ribs, collarbones,
necks!

It seems
a lifetime now
since I inherited
children, wives,
mundane careers.

At first
the humor
of the boys across the street
escaped me.

Now, at 49,
I get the joke.


Alan Britt

Posted over on Word Catalyst Magazine