Retirement/Interment: (an introspective, self-serving poem)

I.

Thinking about bookstores,
cliché, of course, what writer
(Hack! the mind screams)
doesn't.
Gorey wanted to; he just never found the time,
caught up as he was in inks and door knobs, tassels and salt shakers.
Cushy seats, their arms worn to nub,
coffee brewing continually. Teas,
and thick chocolate on doilied saucers.
New books and used—especially used.
Mustard smudges on an ivory page, corners bent,
and microscopic red spiders scurrying diagonally across
page 178, quickly dispatched by a thumb.
Newspapers the world over
whose names I'll mispronounce, nonsensical
tongue clickings, sticking names
read at wobbly corner tables by old men in shabby coats.
I'll care not a whit if the shop is unprofitable, pouring
money good after bad.
I'll hold fast to it for love.
It's the smell that makes the idea appealing—
the dry, sweet-death smell
of old books.
When asked about my favorite smell
by curious seekers of truths
and those detestable internet questionnaires,
I thoughtlessly answer: "Lilacs. Fresh-blooming lilacs."
But I lie; what better scent than that
of old books?

II.

In Mister Pushmower's yard,
(That's how I identify him; I do not know his name,
I know very few of my neighbors' names.)
there is a cracked stone planter on a stone pedestal.
The crack is outlined by velvet moss.
Weeds grow in the planter: tiny, belled yellow blossoms
on spindly greens that vine down, around,
and on
to the grass.
It used to be
that the plants there reflected the seasons:
showy peonies and lemon grass, bigheaded tangerine marigolds,
matte ruby-rimmed winter cabbage, lovingly tended
by Missus Pushmower who passed last spring.
If I had such a glorious planter, an eye-catching,
poem-inspiring, stone planter,
I would ask that my ashy remains be planted deep inside.
Roots would sprout, tethering me securely, new life shoot out above,
perfumed life stretching to kiss the stars.
And many years later, long after the house was sold
and the now ancient neighborhood forgot
who lived where,
a young boy will dig through withered vines
and malnourished soil to renew this garden eyesore.
Finding me at the bottom of the crumbling planter, he will turn to his father and ask: "Dad, look at this stuff—what should I do with it?"
The father, in grass-stained jeans, will stir through sharp bone chips
and unfulfilled yearnings.
"Hmmm, toss it on the compost heap, son; it'll make good fertilizer."
And so I might.


© 2004