"Largo"
by Paloma
Cantankerous man,
New York,
wearing a gray washed coat,
pockets overflowing with these city dwellers
Smells he could carry in his hand….colors sitting
in his eyes…
Stooped men against brick walls…keeping the buildings
from leaning falling,
over handled
women…with too red mouths…
forcing Starsky to stop…….look….…keep walking
His hands chapped from the early chill....
I'm lost….I don't know where I am…
The old neighborhood…Joe's Kosher Deli…gone,
an abandoned Ray's Liquor Store, Mrs. Gantz's house
….gone
"58th Street"……… he is not lost…
There, up
ahead, the Beth Shalom Synagogue,
now given up for dead,
windows and the front door marked with a wooden
"X"..
for burial
Starsky rubs the stubble on his chin…a slight quiver..
*****************************************************
"click,
click"..Ma's heeled shoes
as she walked toward the front…
two sons, on
either side of her,
supporting…holding her gloved hand,
the echo from her shoes, ricocheting off the walls…
"Poor children…"
"…Rachel,
so young.."
Black armbands on the police officers, a photograph of
his Dad,
set up, a
poster saying
Don't forget me
"Good bye,
Mike"
a blue and white floral wreath
***********************************************************
Starsky coughs…head down…
lost in thought…..walking….
stops in front of a baseball diamond,
a couple of holes in the bent fence…his head cocked
as he hears…
**************************************************
"Keep your glove high, Davey…..good boy!"
Walking home with Dad….a firm hand on
a bony shoulder…affectionately squeezing…
Ray's Liquor Store…his three days off…
a six-pack and a Devil Dog for Davey
*********************************************
A siren….a faraway wail…Starsky crosses the street
with
two Hadassah rabbis….black crows in their street
length
cloaks….
The gate of the cemetery…fragile with rust…time…
Past the mausoleum,
fortress for souls,
Melancholy granite angels…
Kneeling under a tree…
branches,
skeleton hands, reaching for
Mike Starsky's grave,
"Dad,
those memories..….. about you and me….….it's getting harder to
keep………you know,
living gets in the way……
.my job in California,
relationships….…just the day to day stuff….…
not all good,
sometimes…...
forgive me,
Dad"
His hands touch weeds…
framing the gravestone, fingers read the
words like a blindman reads Braille…
"Beloved Husband and Loving Dad"
"Dad,
you'd like Hutch," tugging
at a deeply
imbedded weed,
"he's shown me a lot of things…like
classical music…..Remember how you would listen to
those
opera records?… and Nicky and I would make fun?"
On this dreary February day….
a glisten on Starsky's forehead,
"Hutch has been good for me, Dad,
thought you'd like to know.."
A metropolitan bus stops at the gate,
passengers step off noisily..
exhaust balloons as the bus leaves..
At the grave,
underneath the tree,
two men, one
fair…one dark..
together pulling weeds