At 3 O’Clock
I thought about going to Rockaways
The day slipped away
Seconds ticked into minutes.
4:16
I catch the B54

One stop later
I calculated the time.
Four hours
Back and forth
To and from Rockaway

The next stop
North Portland
I get off
Across the avenue
Fort Greene Park

A green lawn shaded by trees
My new destination
A Japanese Pagoda Tree
My hand swept away the twigs
And stones
I lay down an orange towel.

This is not virgin ground
Millions of feet have trampled this spot
There are no footprints.
Someone
A long time ago
Carved ‘FRAN’ into the thin bark.
The name shows its age
Thousands of hands
A name caressed by strangers.

I knew that name.
Once
From Park Slope
1976.

Long black hair
Jewish
A woman played pinball
At the Gaslight Inn
On 7th Avenue
Her hips humped the machine
Without a tilt.

1976
Park Slope
Pinball
I ordered a Heineken.

The bartender wondered
If she made love the same.
After her last ball
Disappeared
I challenged her to a game.
Her Sephardic eyes
Locked on mine
Then gazed at my groin.

“Fran.”

She had a Brooklyn accent
Very Brooklyn
She was a native
I came from New England.

Her first shot collected 33,000
Mine 55,000
Her hips ground into the machine
54,000
She was good
I was better.
87,000

“You’re going to tilt the machine.”

“I never tilt.”

Her eyes fixed on the machine
FUTURE SPA
A good run
78000
My next shoot collect 25,000
She never caught me
I rewarded her loss
With a White Russian
She slid closer to me
Her skin was caked with baby powder.
I had to ask the bartender’s question
About her humping the pinball machine.

“Come home with me and you’ll find out ”

The answer was yes.
And yes everytime.

I got up from the lawn in Fort Greene Park.
My fingertips touch the name
FRAN
On the Japanese Pagoda Tree
Someone had cut it into the trunk
It wasn’t me.
Her name was only tattooed into my memories.

1976
Pinball
Fran