he learned to read before the age of two.
he completed his first NY Times Crossword alone
on his tenth birthday. he’d celebrate the birthdays
of all U.S. presidents with a sixty-second serenade.
he learned to ignore DO NOT WALK ON THE GRASS
signs years after he walked out the door of his childhood home.
coined a loner by neighbors who’d watch from behind drapes,
doors locked, during thunder’s harshest holler,
he’d pluck daisies from gardens and pull
wishes from overgrown weeds.
he’d tuck cattails in denim overalls,
roses behind both ears,
smile a toothless grin as wide as the organ
with missing keys at the church down the street,
a source of hot oats and hotter debates
on topics as varied as Beethoven, butterfly migration,
and the optimal number of baths a week.
he was as flexible as Gumby, his hand in a perpetual wave
and honest about NIMBY, a reality that molded his days.
he shunned politics yet shaped neighborhood dynamics
with an efficacy that rivaled the power of penicillin.
he’d gift long-stemmed florals
while playing games of chess on cardboard boxes in bare feet.
ghosts often in the opposing seat.
he claimed no need for protected housing.
he claimed no desire for respectful reciprocity.
instead, he traded pennies for popsicles, cherry sweet and lemon sour,
and courted opponents for battles of wits
as eagerly as men in business tweed sought cabs
in unexpected rain.
he loved as hard as he lived.
he lived on a land he loved.
pawned nothing and no one.
embraced gardens of evil and Eden.
a King, forever in search of a Queen.
Call me Grandmaster, is how he’d end each day.
Jen Schneider is a community college educator who lives, works, and writes in small spaces in and around Philadelphia. She served as the 2022 Montgomery County (PA) Poet Laureate.