Safe Houses I Have Known

Steve Healey

• Publisher: Coffee House Press
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781566895613
• eBook ISBN: 9781566895699
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: American Poetry
• Index: Literature

A father revealed as a spy, a child unmoored from normalcy—in Safe Houses I Have Known, poems ripple with the secrets that we keep from ourselves and each other.

As a child during the height of the Cold War, Steve Healey learns that his father is a spy for the CIA. Beneath the banality of everyday life—the suburbs of Washington, DC; school and play; his parents’ deteriorating marriage—assumed names, parallel lives, and myriad Cold War menaces linger. Drawing from CIA training manuals and pop culture references alike, Healey’s poetry is both intimate and claustrophobic. In these poems, the natural anxiety of childhood is compounded by the weight of both national and family secrets, and Healey draws deep parallels between the shaky foundations of truth in his past and the paranoia and obfuscation that envelops our nation’s present.

1

If You Are a Spy

it’s possible to keep a secret

sneak a piece of candy every minute

of the day for example keep a bag of M&M’s

hidden nearby or really listen

to music like a cryptographer

sucking blood from a mysterious word

my daughter’s word for music

is munitz if that’s the way to spell it

she keeps saying it until I turn it on

“My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean” is another song

that eludes me I’m not used to the feel

of saltwater sloshing in my ears

it’s true that when my father spied for the CIA

his cover name sounded fake

it was Victor T. Redvane I just failed to keep

that secret there’s no need

to pretend a counterrevolution really came

and my body still lies over the Bay

of Pigs it’s hard to know if a threat is real

inside the shell of my daughter’s ear

a tick recently bit the soft skin

I tweezed the tick and put it in

a jar as evidence just in case

we were watched from outer space

Do You Feel Safe at Home?

This is what the nurse asks me.

I’m wearing socks and a hospital gown.

Soon she’ll walk me down a long hallway toward my procedure.

Outside it’s snowing—everything’s soft and shiny.

What does the word “safe” mean to you?

There once was a time when I drew pictures of hallways

that kept going around and around.

One hallway led to our kitchen—

all the special sharp knives I wasn’t allowed to touch

stood on the counter and took a bow.

Do you feel comfortable in your body?

There once was a bird whose name was “word”

and each time I came near

it fluttered a little farther away.

On a scale from one to ten, how empty do you feel?

I became skilled at shoplifting.

I’d fill my pockets then bring a pack of gum to the cashier.

I’d look into his eyes and say, “Just this, please.”

Do you ever lie in bed and pretend to be asleep?

The anesthesiologist says it’s supposed to keep snowing

as he injects something milky into my IV.

Do you ever pretend to listen to what someone is saying?

There’s so much that can be predicted.

A song I’ve been hearing for a long time.

I’ve got the whole world in my hands.

I’ve got all the angels in a jar, like pickles.

The jar is the size of the whole world.

I will love pickles till the day I die.

A parade is always going by.

Do you have any questions?

Rearview

We almost accidentally ran over a little boy in the parking lot.

We hadn’t expected anything terrible to almost happen while backing out.

It was a nice day, and we’d just had a nice time at the lake when

we almost accidentally ran over a little boy in the parking lot.

The radio was on, and we weren’t paying attention while we backed out.

On the radio someone said the plan to raise taxes was dead in the water.

It was a nice day, and we’d just had a nice time at the lake when

we heard a little boy make the sound of almost being run over by a car.

There was a long moment of not understanding anything because

on the radio someone said the plan to raise taxes was dead in the water,

but then we looked and saw the little boy and began to understand.

He ran to his parents and they yelled at him for being careless.

There was a long moment of not understanding anything because

he was already so scared, then his face fell apart and he cried.

It happened in the United States in a terrible parking lot where

he ran to his parents and they yelled at him for being careless.

We began to drive again, we couldn’t imagine doing anything else,

and we wanted to drive into the future and try not remembering that

it happened in the United States in a terrible parking lot where

we easily could have killed a little boy with our new eco-friendly car.

The sound of fender hitting his torso, his head hitting pavement,

and we wanted to drive into the future and try not remembering that

we’d had such a...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• 1)
• 2)
• 3)
• 4)
• Notes
• Acknowledgments
• Funder Acknowledgments
• The Publisher’s Circle of Coffee House Press