Poetry Magazine, Richard Fein, January 2002

Poetry Magazine

Richard Fein

USA

AISLE OF IMPROBABILITIES

Glimpses of Elvis on Mars,
a two-headed baby baptized twice,
a world of improbabilities reported
by brazen tabloids stacked neck-high
on the checkout aisle racks.
I pass through this world
with a basket full of toilet paper, cookies, and pickles.

Her cheeks are shrouded by her long brown hair.
Her deft, long fingers move the merchandise,
the cost quickly rising as the laser scans.
She pauses and offers me a smile,
revealing a slightly crooked tooth among the pearly whites.
She scolds me with her delicate fingers.
They point to an expiration date.
The cookies are put aside;
she has rescued me from a stale sweetness.
Her graceful fingers get back to business.
Deftly she processes my purchases.
I give her dollars; she gives me change.
Her fingers press my hand
longer than needed to exchange currency.
But the coin is cold with no time for warming.
Our skin must separate,
for the sum has been totaled and paid.
A line of commerce waits behind us.
Her eyes are blue. Her hair is brown.
Her fingers have touched and moved me.
Nearby movie stars cavort on metal racks,
arm and arm at gala events.
But right before me stands,
a long-haired girl with one slightly crooked tooth,
and blue eyes that almost wink at me.
Beyond the glittering Hollywood doings
one more tabloid solemnly proclaims
that aliens from Venus are invading soon.

ALL SUCH RUINED HOUSES
ARE HAUNTED

Donna stuttered.
We knew three boys who stuttered but no girl,
except Donna.
One of our gang heard his mom say
that her mother once worked in the Club Valley.
She danced by the willows under the red and blue lights,
and served men in the house.
We knew what serving men meant, or thought we did--
then the fire, then the ruin.
All such ruined houses are haunted,
but we'd play hide-and-seek there.
Donna would also hide in the drooping leaves,
but she played no games.
Once she stuttered to me not to tell,
for her mom carried a dog leash
which she used especially when drunk.

Her mother asked me once where Donna was hiding.
She was a grownup.
She beat the strap against her leg.
She knew gangsters, that's what I heard.

All this was many years ago.
A co-op now stands on the lot.
Of the weeping willows, the haunted house--not a trace.

She asked where.
I told.

SATAN'S FARSIGHTED
FIELD MARSHAL

The doomed of 1915 huddled in their trenches,
hiding their heads beneath helmets like frightened turtles,
frozen like fawns before mountain lions,
while whistling shells probed the bloody field for targets.
No one dared move, save one.
Why him?
To lead a charge? To be first to retreat?
Or to follow the orders of a field marshal shouting in his brain.
A marshal whose tactics seem to lead whole divisions
into hip-high muck raked with bullets.
Front line soldiers know they're too myopic to share
the farsighted vision of the field marshal behind them.
In between the shelling they might doubt.
But faith is a weapon of cavernous caliber.
Their flag will be raised over the enemy trench.
Their dead will be honored by bugles and drums.
Their crippled saluted as they hobble by.
The unscathed will march in yearly parades,
in ever shrinking and fading uniforms.
But a shell found the exact
latitude and longitude of the cowering doomed,
at the precise time of day.
And amid the blown-apart limbs, the one survivor
gained an unflinching faith that the unseen marshal
had made him the most valued tin soldier on the battle map.
But with all the unsettled smoke from exploded shells,
corporal Hitler couldn't see beyond the piled dead.

REDISCOVERED PHONE NUMBERS

"Consider such numbers just random integers
jotted down under an equally random calendar day,
and the old appointment books they're found in just messy clutter,
faded scribbled connections to long dead wires."

A number in an old appointment calendar book,
(a sheer number written under a certain Monday or Friday
without an accompanying name or address)
would have most of us wondering, but only for a minute or two.
But perhaps you are one of those compelled to seek closure,
like a hopeless neurotic screaming at long dead parents.
Your calls may be greeted with, "This number has been disconnected."
Or worse, some unfamiliar voice says hello,
and you say nothing, or stutter,
or blurt out your rambling life story.
Or worst of all, a once familiar voice answers and you mutter hello,
and the voice calls your name and asks, "Is that you?"
And suddenly you recall why you never called.

TONE-DEAF PILGRIM

Now the dancers move too fast, when before they moved too slow.
No one leads, and no one follows,
and the steps seem out of step to me.
I'm too far to hear the music,
but I get a hint of melody by their movements.
I observe the dance through binoculars.
But I don't dare approach to dance,
for tone-deaf pilgrim that I am
I'm sure to get the complicated rhythm wrong
and crush too many toes.
The steps are too stylized or too spontaneous,
I'd be too stiff or flop like a fish,
I'd be the clown in the middle of a chorus line,
or the wallflower at the end.
From here I can ape the dancers,
but stomp only on my own toes,
hopping faster than a lively Irish jig.
I wait to see the right dance.
Their grace of movement will move me or leave me unmoved.
The way they hold hands, or gaze at each other,
or dance close but not too close,
with no one dancing alone on the crowded ballroom floor
are what would make me risk coming closer
to hear the music that moves the dance, and dance.