Also from the archives, 1992.
Blue Moon Diner
He might have been blind.
In my hourglass
recollection, I don’t believe
he ever looked at me
with his eyes–spacious,
window-like; each blink
the metamorphosis of a streetlight
from red to green
from grey to gray.
Aged cacti prickles
crowned his head; roadmapped
baldness charted the constellations
of his travels. To hear
restaurant monologues
in my novice ears was to see
wisdom printed on a napkin.
He said I looked New Englander, like himself.
I heard him say sheltered,
smiling. Professor
of all that is reachable, witness
of revolution, student
of places where clouds paint
shadows on the landscape,
his slight cricket body
carried mountains.
I saw myself journeying
through time tattered windows;
I saw the vast-heavy earth
deflate to a school child’s globe
filled with places I will go to
when I know the color of every star.
I sipped coffee, sugarless.
I did not ask his name.
I did not think
to ask his name.
Amy Nawrocki 