Hidden in Plain Sight Burns Park Sculpture Garden Denver Vintage Intersection Tee

I remember learning about centrifugal force in my grandma's ‘83 silver Honda Civic Sedan.

 

Parking my undernose on the overcurve of the window sill, 

sniffles pooling and smearing on the sundrenched polyurethane, 

neighborhoods darting past my limited backseat viewpoint. 

I would freeze my gaze and release my focal point, 

the scenery becoming a breakneck kaleidoscope of vertigo.

 

(The beginning of a life-long pursuit of disequilibrium – but that’s not relevant here.)

 

Heading east on Alameda, warm air pouring into the backseat,

mountains of lilac and catalpa riding in on the gusts. 

Fluttering fine hairs against my forehead, it smelled like walking into May D&F.

Sumptuous and sweet, yet a dreadful knot tightened in my gut.

Up, up and over that hill to Augustana Day School,

where I prepared myself, like always, to fake my afternoon nap. 

 

Every day I laid motionless on that uncomfy little cot.

Boggy air between me and a faraway ceiling coddling every fragile sound that

gurgled up from an infinite and undulating heap of sleeping children.

Inevitably, my captive nerves cut and ran when the door creaked open.

A soft voice tiptoed among the blankets and quietly announced recess,

rubbing backs and gently singing sleepyheads awake.

 

Bribing every little yawn and dry-drooly-cheeked little dipshit with the same snack as yesterday.

 

But I never fell for it. 

 

Instead, I lurked under my blankie and flattened myself silently against the squeaky Cordura.

 

There was no way. 

 

There was no way,

in front of whatever forgery they worshipped there in that hollow Hilltop House of Hideosities,

that Holy Hoax hanging over Leetsdale,

that Bullshit and Bogus,

that Fabricated and Fictitious,

that Hokey and Hypocritical,

Goody-goody and Double-dealing “Opiate for the Asses” I overheard my grandmother once say.

 

There was no way,

in front of these counterfeit caregivers and my grandmother’s nemesis,

was I going to willfully eat

 

another

motherfucking 

graham cracker.

 

Plain, no less.

 

There was no way.

 

And I refused so many times that today they threatened me with uncooked broccoli. 

Furtively choosing a vegetable that all respectably decent children disliked. 

Asserting that my only choice was between these two bizarre abominations.

Knowing that, given the alternative, I would corral like my broken Breyer colt.

Hoping that I would accept defeat willy-nilly.

Like the rest of those fetid little thumbsuckers.

 

But fuck that.

 

I knew my rights.

 

And while locked in that cutthroat contest of cruciferous eye-contact with Miss Candace,

I methodically munched and masticated every bit of her manipulation tactics.

Deep past the nausea and tummy grumbles,

I forced her false dichotomy so far down my throat that it almost stayed.

 

But instead, it bucked and reared, kicked and broke reins,

immediately climbing back up and out in a caterwauling expression of calabrese.

First camouflaged against the camping-colored cot,

then pooling sulphuric and steaming on the back seat upholstery

of the very vehicle that had volunteered me for this victimization.

 

Back down Alameda, Grandma driving woozy and whirling, we came upon that one park.

 

Burns Park. 

 

That park which you only ever drive around. 

Burns Park where you only ever turn to go to Augustana.

Burns Park where you only ever turn to go to Celebrity Sports Center.

Turns Park, the park where everyone studied back-seat Modern Minimalist sculpture 

as they drove around.

 

Turned around the park where each sculpture looked climbable, 

and the geese returned every year.

 

Any other day, I imagined running through the gaggles.

I hypothesized that I could summit each sculpture 

one by one

if they weren’t just like the rest of my mom’s unbroken Breyer Horses–

off fucking limits.

 

Nose on the windowsill scrutinizing those stupid fucking sculptures, 

my grandmother hurriedly turned from Alameda over the top of Churns Park.

Churns Park where neither me nor my regurgitated broccoli were wearing a seatbelt.

 

Churns Park where the inertia of the spin

peeled me back from those Minimalist sculptures.

Less became more as I rolled through the rest

of the broccoli brought with, 

 

chewed and swallowed 

but spewed unfollowed,

by graham cracker unhallowed.

 

I finally got to get out of the car

to witness an unturning 

and unchurning 

 

Burns Park.