Sometimes April Neiderlander

Nee Stevens, would lean her elbows

On the windowsill and bask in her

View of the world outside. Only

Recoiling faintly at the irony of

A sullen block of brownstones

In Allentown that blocked her view,

She would lift her head and strain to

See the spidery pillars of the roller-coaster

Miles away at Dorney Park

She was not given to nostalgia, but

April would smile at memories of

Her younger days, spent in the Tide Pool

There, and of the gangly, frozen-smiled

Young man whose adoring eyes lasered

Fearfully to see if the next rolling breaker

Would bring his sweetheart down.

“He’s so cute, isn’t he?” Marge Rathskeller

Said, then tittered in that way that teenage girls

Do at the affectations of lovestruck boys. Cringing

At the memory, April recalled flipping him

The bird and telling Marge, “oh, he’s just a nerd,

That Harry. Nobody really likes him” But in the

Twilight, at the bus stop, she would accept his

Offer of a ride, and sometimes, his proffering a kiss.

Those were her wild girl days, when Bad Boys ruled

When chains and motorcycles had more allure

Than bookish boys with Wonder Bread dreams

Of a good life and children and a home somewhere

In the ‘burbs. Harry Gosden said he was more than that

He wrote poetry and drew and pointed to his rebellious

Streak as indication he had the Wildman in his

Veins. But April laughed and stained him, calling him

“The quintessential nice guy.” And she could not forget

The hurt, when she would make out with

Older boys before his lovestruck eyes.

He took her to the prom and the movies and to

Places like the libraries where the handsome rakes

Would never go, to the books they’d never crack.

He took her to the Poconos and drew her pictures

Of the falcons, and when Randy Jellico, the poster

Boy, broke her heart and almost broke her nose,

It was Harry’s sweet poem she found in an envelope

On her parent’s porch that helped her through the night

Why is that love comes late to the unwary?

Why, ten years after, when she was married

And living in Wisconsin, did April realize

The hole in her heart, even then, had a name

That it had a frozen smile and a beautiful way

With birds crafted in pencil, and words crafted in

Glorious free verse that always spoke to her

Hidden heart. Sometimes she would lift her daughter to

Her arms and recite one of Harry’s verses as a mantra

To a little girl’s broken heart and a mother’s

Wounded memory

“We are as we love. We love as we are.”

Way leads to way. Marriages crumble in the dust

Despite the children. Women left alone become

As strong as lions and tend to their broken flocks

With passion they never knew they had. But

Sometimes the yearning for the past

Does sing its siren songs, and perhaps that is why

April left Milwaukee and found her way back to

Allentown. And one day, on the ‘net, she found

Harry Gosden’s number.

It was always a shot in the dark, the call.

What if he was married, had children. What if he simply

Didn’t care. What, indeed, if he were not the man

Who was once the boy. The ringless phone mocked her

For awhile, until, like all her youth, she packed it away

Like a quilt, letting it molder in the cedar chest of time 

Then, one March morning, one gray iron

Day when the world was already upside down

She saw the man with the flowers. His brown

Hair thinned, the smile not so evident, standing

Irresolute on the sidewalk, peering at the sightless

Windows,  and yearning for a face. She almost cried out,

Then cried, as her daughter bolted down the steps

In lockstep with a neighbor. She knew that frozen smile

Again; that puppy dog hurt. “Oh God,” she  thought. “He

Must think…. My daughter, that man…. He thinks I’'m...…”

She threw on a robe and dashed out in the street

But the man called Harry had already flown and

In the middle of her left another hole that once was

April Neiderlander’s heart. And the story might have ended

Except she knew that for someone to be a hero, someone

Had to take a second chance. Finding the crumpled paper

With his number, she called again, and this time

In a quivering voice, said, “Do not hang up, Harry.

Do not ignore. Listen to my voice and listen to your heart.

Come back. Come back and find me. I am still here.”

“And always remember what I never forgot,” she said,

Into the answering machine.

“We are as we love. We love as we are.”

05/19/2003

Author's Note: The promised sequel to American Portrait 8

Posted on 05/19/2003
Copyright © 2025 Ken Harnisch