Coming at you, Ray
Gone so long
but raised
today in conversation--
Provincetown,
MA (were you ever here?).
Still
handsome (don’t worry)
silver
blue-eyed, sinewy (not my idea of masculine? so what).
Today we
could have been old friends
(our issues long
ago resolved).
I could have
said, “This is my old friend, Ray.
We sustained each other in the
workplace,”
talked
students, film, Capote,
friends
against bureaucracy at the
South Bronx
junior high, 149th and St. Ann’s,
a perp walk
from the subway, etc.
Escapee from
rural Norfolk
fugitive from
insular Brooklyn
teachers with
callings to new lives
and I lost
you to the AIDS plague.
Now, so much
later I see you
when I pass
this house, hydrangeas
the colors of
the sky out front
a Bedlington
terrier, like George,
watching from
the porch (too obvious? so what).
Many
evolutions in my life.
People were
pushed and fell away.
But you, you
could have been here
and I could
have said, “This is my old friend, Ray.
We cycled and camped through so many
seasons. We toast
our longevity. We are still
……”
Damn, I hate
this crepuscular life!
© Linda Umans
Sharon Dolin suggested she would involve some of her students in Barcelona to send me their work. Linda Umans forwarded her short bio:
ReplyDeleteLinda Umans enjoyed a long teaching career in the New York City public schools. She is a native of Manhattan where she lives, studies, writes. Recent publications include poems in qarrtsiluni, Terrain.org, The Broome Street Review, Theodate, DIALOGIST, Switched-on Gutenberg, Composite {Arts Magazine}, Spillway, and pieces in Mr. Beller's Neighborhood.
Great Poem, Linda!
ReplyDelete