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Roger Pfingston
Jean
Roger Pfingston
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Her name? Maybe. It’s what someone passed to another who passed it on to me with a shrug. True to her chosen way, everything she owns is bagged, mounded in a grocery cart, her appearance marked by the white lace shawl covering her head, the woman who stands waiting in one of her comfort zones, not openly on a corner, more of a peripheral presence. Over the years the town has accepted, even embraced her, including the City Grill where I was seated one night when I realized Jean, too, was dining at a window table down from me, gratis no doubt, her colorful basket where she could see it on the sidewalk, the waitress attentive, leaning to hear the secret of her voice before Jean resumed her mute stare. The last time I saw her—wondering how she’d pulled it off—was the county library, her familiar cart and shawl a slow progression moving in and out among the bookshelves, which set me to thinking of Emerson’s essay: …the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude. A worrisome note—it’s been awhile, her absence—my own sense of time becoming skewed as I fall prey to the body’s dark vagaries. I’m sure there are those who know her story, though I prefer the one I carry, addressing still her living silence.
Turning 80
Roger Pfingston
Friends kid the old poet that his lips are getting thin,
no longer sexy full. He worries in the mirror that it might be true,
so when he turns to his wife asking for a kiss, to see what she thinks,
she says OK, but when they pucker she can’t stop giggling, says it
doesn’t matter at their age, which makes him sad then mad
enough to take her in his arms, à la Clark Gable, bend her back
and plant one. Can’t be sure, she says, bussing his cheek. Let me think on it.
A retired teacher of English and photography, Roger Pfingston is the recipient of a poetry fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. His poems have appeared in American Journal of Poetry, Poet Lore, Spoon River Poetry Review, Innisfree Poetry Journal, and Ted Kooser’s column, American Life in Poetry. His latest chapbook, What's Given, is available from Kattywompus Press.
