Jed Myers

 

I Picture Him Driving

My father never said lonely. He’d say Let’s go to Alfredo’s. Soon

as he’d collapsed in the living-room chair home from work. We’d see

how beat he was. He’d talk through his yawns,

 

then he’d thrust himself forward and push up off the chair’s arms, go

wrestle his coat back on, and we’d follow him out the front door

to the car. He would drive

 

over the limit, slow down for stop signs or rights on red, and pull

a quick left through a brief gap in City Line’s oncoming traffic

to land us in Alfredo’s lot. He said hungry

 

at times, never empty. There’d be caprese and Who else’ll have some,

come on, don’t make me finish it all by myself. He’d tell us

again about Italy, say Next comes the primi,

 

he’d have the risotto or gnocchi, the rest of us whatever, noodles

in red sauce, and after, keeping the cloth napkin tucked at his neck,

for him the secondi, veal, chicken, lobster . . .

 

we’d drag our forks through what was left on our plates. And he’d have

put in for several contorni, the parmesan-graced asparagus

plus a few more to pass around—we’d sample

 

these for his sake in our fullness. He’d never think we’d had enough,

though we’d be dazed by the time the tiramisu arrived, one

for each. He’d finish his, and at last lifting

 

the bib from his collar, would ask for the check. My father never said

what was the matter. He’d take his Alka-Seltzer and Tums

through the night, wind up in front of the TV

 

in the den before dawn, and head out in the dark for work. He never said

restless, but I watched his relentless thrashing in his hospice

bed—he wanted to get dressed and out

 

to the car, saying Come on let’s go get the soup. What are we waiting for?

I wonder if that soup was his mother’s winter borsht, roots

grounding us once more in Minsk

 

or Vilnius, but I’m convinced it was a rich minestrone. And evenings

I picture him driving alone in those sun-dried hills of his

heaven, to dine at the next stucco inn.

 

Not Even August

Excessive heat warning remains in effect . . .
—July 31, 2022

 

Out on the landfill the asters are opening,

 

seems all at once, and it’s not even
August.

 

How are the stems at all green
in the dry of this heat?

 

And the off-white
discs of the Queen Anne’s lace risen just

 

as suddenly, like a hovering city
above the dead-brown grasses.

 

Ache
in my left hip again this morning. I step

 

slow. Where the trail by the pond was
mud, it’s hard now.

 

And the Himalayan
blackberries are already darkening. How

 

has the wheel been sped? I know. I know.