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Minefields
Driving past Wallingford you say, again, "This is where Lenny Golub lived; he died in forty-five, in Belgium, when a mine blew up his jeep; he was nineteen." This ride
takes us to Massachusetts, where our son's wife is making dinner, and the kids, happily underfoot, pull all the pans out of the cabinets and bang the lids.
They know when to start looking for our car, moist starfish hands smearing the window glass. We always make it. Having come this far we count on destinations. But you pass
this town more quietly than most, your mind on friends delayed elsewhere forever, who left their names and their brief dates behind in heavy summer green, to ambush you.
Homebound past Wallingford you'll say, again, "This is where Lenny lived; he died—let's see— in forty-five, in Belgium; that was when his jeep blew up. He was nineteen, like me."
Rhina P. Espaillat
From Landscapes with Women: Four American
Poets, |
