Saul Bennett
19
I'm a 1930's cabby dipped in fluid
midtown traffic, intense
and if alone upfront unlonely at my wheel.
Though my passenger is silent
seated dignified behind me we are one.
In a gown length black spring coat pinched slender at the waist
- not to say unattractively severely! -
beneath halfmoonish gray-pearl cloche
she appears at three or four
Mother.
We slant south toward lowest Fifth
where John Sloan drew her at 16 (my invention
at first sighting of his aquatint soon past her early death)
between two other noir-lit starlets hugging
overflowing cones of flowers underneath
umbrellas through the Arch at Easter Eve.
Embraced by teeming sidewalks fleeting
anecdotes float toward us forming
strangers who respond with earnest waves
though softer than their slashes formed to flag our cab.
Others in the street appear
to wish to start a conversation, recalling with some passion!
unremembered leavings from her past.
I speed a little
noticing a universal grin.
As the crowds begin to break rote details fill in her story's
space like pink and easy attic insulation. On the weathered leather
jotter of my mind her memory's dense
and fleshy on the flanks though spare,
but tender, at the center.