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DASANI Purified Water
Something
nice happened at the end
of
a very long rather lugubrious day,
after
getting up at and
driving 393 miles
through
four states,
meandering
half-asleep through four
insipidly
dull business meetings,
eating
twice at McDonald’s:
one
in Danbury Connecticut,
the
other in Tom’s River, New Jersey
(who
was this Tom I wonder?),
almost
wetting myself once
because
the rest stop on the Thruway
was
further than I remembered,
getting
stuck in ridiculous rush-hour traffic
(people
do this every fucking day!!!)
in
Hartford Waterford White Plains,
and
on Route 18 in East Brunswick.
Then
finally, finally, just before nightfall
I
slipped two dollar bills
into
the hotel lobby vending machine
for
a 20 FL OZ bottle of
DASANI
Purified Water
Enhanced
With Minerals For a Pure,
Fresh
Taste,
and
two of them
popped
out of the machine.
Not
such a bad day after all.
But all the doors were locked.
Tried to get into
the old high school today
where we stalked the halls
40 years ago.
But all the doors were locked.
In the front and on the sides,
all I wanted
was to have a look
down the hallway of Building 7
where I’d walk with you
carrying your books.
All I wanted
was peer for a moment
up into that narrow auditorium
spotlight booth where I stole
from your sweet lips
that very first little kiss
ages and ages and ages ago.
Cadavers
Some of these guys sitting
like
termite hills all slumped
over in the sand
pot-bellied, pale-fleshed,
are wealthy I know,
run their own companies,
hire and fire workers with
a snap of their uncaring
fingers. Maybe some
even extort money, commit adultery,
beat their children and wives.
But out here beneath
the sun at the ocean's edge
they all look the same
reminding me of being
in medical school so many years ago
dissecting cadavers.
They all looked the same there,
too, except for distinguishing scars
or a missing finger or toe
or being very fat or very skinny.
And at that time I
thought:
we're all the same in the end.
But now I know we're all the same
from the beginning, all of us,
except of course for the Mozarts,
Einsteins, Dantes, Shakespeares,
Rembrandts, Cleopatras,
and Joans of Arc.
Mike Estabrook seems to have been writing poetry for so long that Methuselah
should be taking notice, but in reality, time is simply doing its thing streaking
ahead blithely pulling all of us along for the wild ride whether we like it or not;
this reminds him, that he has published 15 chapbooks over the years, the last one being “when Patti
would fall asleep” by Liquid Paper Press in 2003, and makes him realize it’s time to work on another one.
Email: Mike Estabrook
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