POEMS
A WIDOWER
He still reads
his
paper in there; the john's what he comes home for.
The door kept locked the way some men keep a whore
Was his whore while his wife lived. Still up at eight,
In bed by ten. But now sometimes he's up late,
Biting his tongue to tears, to masturbate.
And now always his angina schreis like a boiling kettle.
His breath shrieks when he reaches to wash the newsprint away,
Still seated, from his cigar-stained fingers. Like rusted metal,
The white and gray tiles : a veined, brownish light gray.
When he tries to think of her face,
He sees the drops clinging to the faucet droop and ache.
He sees his shadow on the pebbled glass,
Covered with the tears he's held back.
Outside the door, his visiting granddaughter barks at the dog,
Asleep there, gassing and grumbling. One foot must be bare–
The other in what must be her grandmother's beach clog,
She slops down the hall rug.
She
should care?
The bathroom cares for him like a wife.
But his little legs, swastika-like
In black sharkskin, still run his coalyards and
his
life,
He has no say. His dry throat stabs him, like a spike
Of unpaid bills, counting the white tiles, then again the gray.
He'd like a cigar for every time that kvetch killed
Him in her dreams every day
And
knew
he knew it-and was thrilled!
