“Unhinged” by Daniel Gene Barlekamp
Photo Credit: Nick Sarro
I cry all the way home
after we tell our two-year-old
to put back the blueberries,
stopping ourselves halfway through an explanation
of overdrafts and living expenses.
For the first time in my life,
I curse out a billboard.
Two, to be exact.
The first, an etching of the Boston Tea Party
with the superimposed message
BOSTON:
THE FIRST CITY THAT REFUSED TO OVERPAY.
The second, just the words
THE CITY THAT SAVES.
Both for BJ’s.
Boston saves,
Jesus might,
but I don’t.
I just sit in traffic and scold myself
for judging the students in their designer pajamas,
the Beamer that crowds an ambulance in Chinatown.
“Are you doing OK?” my mother asks when we talk.
“You don’t have to, you know…borrow?”
She whispers the forbidden word,
and I imagine myself knocking on the door of the bank
like a broke Uncle Moneybags,
hat in hand, thinning hair wet from the rain.
Beg? Sometimes.
Steal? Once or twice.
Borrow? Never.
The thing about borrowing
is that you have to give it back.
How can I give back
what I don’t have?
Instead, I drift off
and remember summers on the boardwalk,
hot days, cool nights,
shorts and hoodies,
the sound of the surf
receding in the dark.
Artist Statement
As a reader, I value poems that use direct, concrete language and strong imagery. I love it when a poet is able to relate a moment, large or small, from their everyday life in a way that resonates with me regardless of whether I share a similar experience. That is what I hope to do--as a mentor put it, to "tell stories about stuff that's happened to me" through poems in which readers can recognize parts of themselves or their own lives.
Daniel Gene Barlekamp is the author of poems and stories for adults and young readers. His poetry has been published by Pictura Journal, Seventh Quarry, IHRAM Press, and other magazines and has been translated into Chinese by Poetry Hall. He is on the staff of Molecule: A Tiny Lit Mag. Originally from New Jersey, Daniel now lives with his wife and son in Massachusetts, where he practices immigration law. Visit him at https://dgbarlekamp.com/.