Jukebox, the Hilton
He sat lifetimes alone in that box of six walls, vertical and horizontal, all semi-dark empty space but for the corner jukebox where Chaz the rat came out to sniff around now and then. When fear got the upper hand, he’d hit the button that sent him back to where he left off on his list, alphabetical by title or artist, every one he could remember of life living back home in The World.
He’d hum, he’d sing along with every tune, trolling memory for the lyrics. Once, at the interval between Barry Sadler and The Beach Boys, the juke shut down for minutes or hours, and in that void came the pondering of after-lives—the one hoped for after dying, and the indulgent hypothetical one of what if, what to do if surviving, We take a break between patients, grab a cup of coffee for a chat in the staff room of this urban mental health center. Jack’s much older than the other medical interns on rotation in psychiatry. I ask how he got into medicine, and his reply, “a promise”, then tells the story of a Navy jet pilot shot down and captured, taken to
the Hanoi Hilton as a “VIP guest” (laughs) and the promise to God (if listening to warriors’ pleas) and to himself: for each one taken, others to save a thousand-fold.
April Tour, Factory Town
Above me, a half-painted steeple on a drop-cloth
of indigo; to my right, Jake’s barber pole turning
spirals in the parking lot puddle from last night’s
rain; two blocks down, the all-night diner goes giddy
from the breaking sun’s riot on its armor of chrome.
Here, no mists rolling off the Adirondacks,
no clipper masts parting clouds in
Mystic Port,
no million glowing windows from towers looking down.
This town’s content with plaid flannel, liver spots, bird-nest hair,
front porches for sitting, Sunday mornings for churchgoers
and shade-tree mechanics, elder strollers tapping canes
on uneven slate walks, gracious accepters of moss on stone
and habits gone wrong and sometimes quirky.
It’s an old suit vest without the suit, with orphaned buttons that don’t match— and when one pops off lost, you’ll see me looking.