September 29, 2022 - Daniel Damiano’s “They Were Always Nice to Hear, Anyway”

There was that large, gelatinous
tarot reader
at Peddler’s Village,
a Benson & Hedges Menthol
always as her sixth finger,
who saw my mother’s future
on a wooden TV tray
in a dimly lit booth
crammed between the candy store
and the arcade,
and always with such psychic certainty;
the man who would whisk her away
from her Jersey doldrums
whose name would begin with G or T,
a modest financial resurgence,
a foreseeable move
to a balmier climate;
the expectancy of everything
always left my mother so exhilarated,
though she went back so often
it was difficult to tell
if anything came to fruition
or if the best part of her future
was the mere prediction,
but she never failed to reveal
every prophecy to me when I was a kid,
as if they were
bedtime stories,
before I went to sleep
believing
and waiting
for things to change.

___________________________

Daniel Damiano is an award-winning playwright, actor, novelist, screenwriter and poet based in Brooklyn, NY. He recently premiered his latest solo play, One With the Current, as part of the 2022 Dream Up Festival at Theater for the New City. Other recent productions include The Lepers (Ensemble Studio Theatre Marathon, NYC) and Harmony Park (Detroit Repertory Theatre). His acclaimed play Day of the Dog is published by Broadway Play Publishing. He is a Pushcart Award nominated poet, with poetry published in Crooked Teeth Literary Magazine, Newtown Literary Journal, New Voices Anthology, Cloudbank and HotMetal Press. His forthcoming novel is Graphic Nature, adapted from his play.