POETRYq

Running Into Walta On The Red Line

Walta Borawski, 1947-1994

When a young guy clunks onto the plastic seat across from me on the outbound, his blond hair nine inches long, I notice details you would have, Walta: wide silver band on his middle finger, chest hair where no T-shirt tames, strip of white sheet tied to the strap of coconut-brown canvas bag. Edgy boots with optional metal attached. By the time we’ve taken this young man’s measure, without a glance between us, I’m wowed by how your hover has moved beyond words— gifted motor-mouth poet, you’d stroll into a tearoom & try to blab with pals you’d startle on the cusp of scoring big in late stages of high-stakes cruising. (Queens once called gabbing there “setting up high tea,” but, hon, they meant outside the loo.) I recall your brow, rumpled as if rebuffed. I assumed you’d iron everything out in your diary—ooo, Walta! he’s getting off at Harvard Square. Are you going on to Porter (for what, I can’t help but wonder— is the afterlife past Alewife)?

No, look!—he’s sauntering down the ramp, heading back to your old clapboard neighborhood’s yard-slivers, its cluttered porches. Maybe he’s riding back & forth between your two stops, looking for words. Quick—interrupt! If only you could invite him up for chatty raspberry tea—to show him your books. How it’s done. Like you did for me.

–Steven Riel Natick, Massachussetts

Stolen Touch

This dentist cups my jaw in one hand while he drills. I try to pack memory of his skin’s warmth into my stash: fragrant tobacco to tamp inside my pipe’s bowl. Half a sob lurks within because I’ve probed how deep & wide the hole.

When I take change from the lean toll collector there Sundays after nine, will his calluses meet mine? Even if only starched & pressed cotton enveloping an alert elbow (The Wall Street Journal kind) brushes over mine on the commuter train, that often more than satisfies.

A seven-degree A.M. He’s big & gangly—probably a lawyer, probably ten years older than I. The sleepy length of him’s harking towards fetal position, knees poking into the aisle. We’re close to spooning. I close my eyes.

His Blackberry vibrates against my thigh. He doesn’t answer. The conductor announces over the PA our train must couple with the broken-down 7:22 blocking our way. He apologizes for the delay, the gentle bumping.

Today’s guy takes up five-eighths of a two-seater by dozing upright. To squeeze into my seat, I must snuggle under his shoulder. I can’t help if his beef’s wider than one seat, his wrestler thighs spread wide.

When I inhale, my elbow has no choice but to rub against his torso while he slumbers right up to the last stop. No choice. Innocent.

–Steven Riel Natick, Massachussetts

ROBIN PETER DAMIAN CHATTERJIE b. 23/11/50 d. 11/06/86

‘Remembered’

If I could put limbs back on you I’d tear off my arms, legs, dick My own, but you are also my own. What’s not to love, to share?

Those members you used to reach out, To walk the earth, pleasure to others. Remembering you is what I do in living on. Without your brown eyes looking into me: That quizzical, but protective look.

I could transgress and be sure of A reality check… and forgiveness. Alcohol had numbed my being:

Annihilation birthed two-spirit life

To journey to your soul I became shaman.

I died to my narrow self also. To visit the imaginal world. And returned from the unconscious With something of my ancestral core. My horse-nature, centaur. Beyond laws of gods and men; Freely giving, teaching, healing.

A wounded healer’s a hard thing to be Till he learns he himself Cannot and should not heal. The wound that keeps him open to love. Every night for twenty-one years I’ve kept faith and watch with you Stroked your hair, held you close. Respected elder brother: Namasté!

–Notre Dame des Arbres London

Aretha’s Hat my favorite inaugural image: Aretha’s hat gray wool felt studded with Swarovski crystals purchased in Detroit for one hundred and seventy-nine dollars from Mr. Song Millinery warmed her head that chilly day crown jewels for the Queen of Soul? no need with a voice that shines like diamonds that shimmers opalescent her song a string of pearls

–Franklin Abbott

22 January 2009

Stone Mountain, Georgia