And Below It All, the Ohio

An ode to my hometown.

Author Photo

October maples the color of rust
and iodine, hills stacked
behind hills, each ridge
a shade darker than the one before.
Pine resin so thick in the air
your teeth ached with it.
Wood smoke from a neighbor’s chimney
drifting low across their chain-link,
settling into your coat
where it stayed for days.
Buckeyes split open on the sidewalk,
that dark wet mahogany nut
against the concrete,
the kind of beautiful
no one bent down for but us.
We stuffed our coat pockets full of them,
heavy and smooth,
carried them until they dried out
and our mothers threw them away.

But that was fall, and before fall
there was summer at
the park pool,
water so chlorinated
your swimsuit bleached by August.
Concrete apron scorching
the backs of your thighs.
The lifeguard’s whistle,
a cannonball’s hollow THWOCK
and the spray across your comic book.
Popsicle juice
sticky between your fingers
all the way home
past Zontinis, where the pizza
was the best I will ever eat
in my life, and I have tried
in every city since
to find it again
and it does not exist.
The strawberry festival,
red juice on our chins and down our wrists,
eating until our stomachs cramped
and then eating more,
the berries warm from the sun
and too sweet on our tongue.

Then Betty Zane Days
and you knew summer had its hand on the door.
Parade down the middle of town,
the fire truck, the queen
on the back of a convertible
waving with her whole arm.
The carnival all week,
every night of it,
the Tilt-a-Whirl
throwing your stomach into your throat,
the midway loud with generators
and bad speakers
and the smell of elephant ear grease
and trampled grass.
August air still heavy and warm
but the streetlights kicking on
a little earlier each night
until one Friday
you needed a jacket,
and the stadium was full.

Hanover Street empty as a church on Monday
because everyone was there,
shoulder-to-shoulder on those cold bleachers at the
edge of the river,
fathers white-knuckling the railing,
their breath coming out
in short punches.
The quarterback’s arm
cocking back under the lights,
that one held second
when the whole town
stopped blinking.
And the night we beat Bellaire,
the Big Reds quiet
on their side of the field,
and Sparky coming home with us
for another year,
the whole ride back
the car horns didn’t stop,
Purple Riders
Purple Riders
Purple Riders
like the town had one heartbeat
and it was ours…
it was ours.

Below it all, the Ohio,
the color of coffee
left out since morning.
Barge smoke. Diesel slick
catching a little green, a little violet.
West Virginia right there,
close enough to yell at.
The river didn’t care about football
or festivals or any of us.
It kept flowing,
and so did the seasons.

First snow buried the slag heaps,
the storefront gaps on Main,
the Wheeling-Pitt fence line.
By January the cold
got into the windowframes,
into the kitchen radiator’s clank and hiss,
into your mother’s voice
when she said your father’s name.
Pine needles frozen into the mud
on the walk to school,
your boots cracking them.
Your own breath
the only warm thing
for blocks.

And now I carry it all…
the actual gravel
in the stadium parking lot,
the rust
on the bridge girders,
my grandmother’s coffee pot
rattling at six AM
in a house on Clinton Street
that isn’t there anymore.
Nothing but an empty lot. Grass and gravel
where the kitchen was,
where the coffee was,
where she stood
in her slippers
and knew every single thing
about me…
the way I knew everything
about Ferry.

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Authors Note: I lived in Martins Ferry, Ohio until I was twenty years old. And it’s been near thirty years since. I’ve gone back now and then over the years, to visit my grandparents graves, to visit old high school friends, to see the place that raised me. Most of what I knew is gone, the schools torn down, my grandparents house demolished, the penny candy store disappeared…and so it lives only in my memories. And if I close my eyes, it’s all there…the river rushing by, a smooth buckeye in my hand, my grandmother’s laughter, the smell of my grandfather’s pipe, the feel of the crowd cheering on a cold Friday night…

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Thanks for reading!

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