When my father finally notices me, his eyes are broken,

pleading, guilty, hopeless.

She’s driving me crazy, he says.

He stops, stand ups, grabs his cigarettes,

walks out of the apartment.

My mother gets off the floor too,

stops crying,

tries to pull herself together,

takes a drink of whatever is on the table,

stares at the door, left slightly open.

Grown-up talk, Ari, she says,

and sits down in her chair.

Just grown-up talk.

School over the Bridge

I should be going

to school in San Francisco,

where we live,

but my parents

send me over the Golden Gate,

to Mill Valley Middle School.

They say they want to send me to the best school.

It’s won all the awards, my mother tells me.

I ask her if she’ll get me a phone now

since I will be going so far every day,

but she tells me, No!

Under no circumstances, she says.

Those things stifle creativity!

You can always reach me on the school phone.

At first, my father drove me every day,

and we laughed and talked about school

or the family in New York

or the best ways to talk to girls,

but after doing it for a while,

I could tell he didn’t like

driving over the bridge every day.

One day he got really quiet,

played the music a little louder,

and we didn’t talk at all.

This drive is too long, he said.

There’s got to be another way.

I Will Fight You

Words are the source of misunderstandings.

—Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

When you are fat,

you get picked on.

It’s just how it is,

especially if you’re the new kid.

I don’t know what to say

most of the time.

I just want them to like me.

I want to fit in.

At the Ping-Pong table

before school,

Frank tells me

that he is afraid of Mark,

that he made him mad somehow.

Frank’s one of the people

I see before school,

because his parents drop him early

for the breakfast program,

and sometimes I get there early too.

We eat doughnuts between games,

and I eat way too many.

Powdered sugar

wafts onto the table,

white flecks

on a green field.

I want Frank to be my friend

but usually he is mean to me,

picks me last at PE,

makes fat jokes,

even pushes me.

Sometimes, on bad

days, he chases

me on the bike path after school.

One time he called me “Jewboy.”

When I told my parents,

they said to stay away,

but there is

nowhere else

to go.

For now, we are

battling on the table,

and for once I am winning.

You’re pretty good, he says.

I used to have a table at home, I reply.

I didn’t. I try not to lie,

but I’m scared to tell him

that I learned to play