This morning I tried once more to fix the squeaky
drawer in your grandmother's armoire. I waxed
it with a bar of soap the way she always did when mist
from the spring rains dampened the wood. When I tried
to slide it back on its ancient hinges, its protest
sounded like heartstrings.
The man on the bench still hasn't stirred, and Calypso
can't pull her eyes away. Argyle socks bloom colorfully
from ancient Keds. Triangles of green and gold poke
through places where canvas and rubber sole no longer speak.
A belch rich as a spuming volcano suddenly erupts from
the man, sending his face into spasms. Then he settles back
in the bench as if it were an armchair in his living room,
pulls a book of John Berryman's poems from his Arnold's
Moving Van jacket and begins to read.
A smile deep from somewhere I don't recognize pulls me
to my feet with such force that Calypso turns to look at me.
I take her lovely face into my hands, stroke her haphazard
yellow ears, and head back the way I came.
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