The old man, who wrote poetry in his
dying language that no one read, wrote or published anymore, slowly
finished his lunch and put on his coat, keeping me waiting, my meter
outside ticking like a metronome percussioning the sound-bed to an
homerican odyssey in a day's journey, in a Joycean storybook. The
details of the last potato, their back story, their ancestors from
south america, survived the great hunger, the knife, the fork, their
back story, their stainless steel progression through the iron age
via bronze and tin and stone and wood and bone. The coat's synthetic
fibres, the chair's seat revealed as he erected himself, the table
cleared, the pretty waitor woman paid, my car's exhaust fumes
blending with the cigarette smoke of the afternoon cafe chap's, cafe
creme cigarillos. The conversations in the midst of all this getting
here, led to 13 American men walking on the moon.
“Do you speak it yourself he asked”
“Not since I was twelve” I said
And held him, like i used to hold my
grandmother, and led him outside to meet his maker; The Mirror, in
the gutter's rainfallen puddle, reflecting the stars.
