for Gomer Rees
There’s that erect old veteran, eyes glittering,
not looking half my age, let alone his own 93;
he’s chatting away with someone. Everyone’s chatting with someone.
But not me. I’m chatting with no one and nobody’s
chatting with me. A poet I used to know in the city
wrote a poem about such a scene, and now I come
to a belated appreciation of that poem.
I don’t know why I should repeat it. But I do.
I move my psyche around the room
searching vainly for another theme
but don’t find any. This will have to do.
After coming home alone in the cold
and dining on some very unappetizing beef stew, too.
This article appears in December 2010.
