…and it could be some folk around a rectangular table ….
No meeting on the agenda – it is the waiting area, the doctor’s ….
At the head, the Army engineer in his 90s,
With his wife who says, “We were in Germany in 1947,
Outside a concentration camp, and the soil, so rich and dark,
Darker than other soil for miles and miles.”
Coming down a long end, a woman alone, and she can see
Key West and Tampa 74 years ago.
“My father rolled cigars in Tampa,
I love the smell of cigars and pipes,
And he sat in a big room, and a man sat in front
Of the rollers, and read novels aloud in Spanish.”
Down at a short end, a couple, silent, on a couch,
With their bodies deep in the soft cushions,
Very quiet, holding each other’s body.
Nothing to say ….
The man, though, has a shirt that says, “You are the weakest link.”
I think about it ….
And there is a man on the long side,
Custer South Dakota State Park shirt,
And does he know of George Custer, Civil War – Union side
Winner, and then Indian War loser?
Silence.
No one is called, long afternoon, long ….
Eugene “Gene” Novogrodsky
Brownsville, late May 2011
