David Huddle

Block Party

Start Me Up! was what started it–Monica Litzkus from up
the street got tight that afternoon so she put on Tattoo
You cranked to the Max & anybody coming over to complain
got handed a beer & invited to dance with Monica & Jason
on the porch which situation inspired Bill & Sally Young
to pull these old sawhorses out of their garage to block
both ends of the street & the McIntosh girls crayoned up
some signage BLOCK PARTY KEEP OUT UNLESS YOU’RE A DANCER
which kept out nobody whatsoever it was the first spring
afternoon warm enough to wear shorts & a T-shirt & Maria
& Mary broke out some Prosecco & Steve Offenharz said he
wanted to hear the Alabama Shakes & Fred D Hilton yelled
HELL YES! & there was a breeze & somebody set up a grill
& said he’d cook anything but tofu & Patty Corcoran made
a salad big enough to feed all of Argentina & Leonardo’s
sent in half a dozen pizzas & then the Shaws said they’d
show people how to do the Lindy Hop if we could put Duke
Ellington on Monica’s stereo & right here on South Flint
Street we flipped back to the nineteen-twenties with the
Shaws and the Steptos in their sixties stepping out like
teenagers & the other dancers picked up the moves & even
the spirit of the country back when we believed hope was
reasonable things were getting better every day but then
just to remind us which century we were living in Robert
Perkins asked Ama Codjoe if she was a citizen & everyone
got quiet somebody shut down the music & Ama walked away
from him but of course he followed her & heckled & so we
yelled at him but people took his side & so when Alberto
Ruiz blew his referee’s whistle & everybody shut up & he
yelled I INVITE YOU ALL TO GO HOME NOW BECAUSE OUR PARTY
IS OVER we all did exactly what he said found our dishes
and our kids headed home feeling ashamed but not knowing
why & so kept quiet & entered our silent houses & locked
the doors & told our kids to stop asking us how come the
party ended when we were having a great time and so then
we yelled HOW SHOULD WE KNOW ASK YOUR TEACHERS AT SCHOOL.

Author: David Huddle

David Huddle teaches at the Bread Loaf School of English.  His fiction, poetry, and essays have appeared in The American Scholar, Esquire, The New Yorker, Harper’s, Poetry, Shenandoah, Agni, Plume, The Hollins Critic, and the Georgia Review.  In 2012 his novel Nothing Can Make Me Do This won the Library of Virginia Award for Fiction, and his poetry collection Black Snake at the Family Reunion won the Pen New England Award for Poetry.  Huddle’s novel The Faulkes Chronicle appeared from Tupelo Press in Fall 2014, and a poetry collection, Dream Sender was published by LSU Press in Fall 2015.  In 2016, a novel, My Immaculate Assassin, appeared from Tupelo Press.  Another novel, Hazel, was published in 2019, and his most recent poetry collection, My Surly Heart, was published by LSU Press in 2019.  With Meighan Sharp, Huddle has co-authored a poetry collection, Effusive Greetings to Friends, which will be forthcoming from Groundhog Poetry Press very soon.

 

 

**Photographer:  Molly Huddle Coffey

Plume: Issue #71 June 2017