Bob
By Alfred Corn
For Mimi Khalvati
Why go? Partly because we had no reason
To, though, granted, Hastings's on the Channel—
Which meant salt air and, that day, winter sun.
A zigzag swing from station down to shingle
To take in the cold light and arrowy
Jeers shrilled by veering scavengers overhead,
Who flirted, razzed, then flapped and rowed away,
Our tentative footsteps fumbling pebbles, dead
Shellfish, kelp, plastic bits. A backtrack trek
To lunch should keep mild melancholy at
Bay, even if the loose-ends, fifties-flick
Ambience was what we'd come for. Or part of what.
Later, our huff-puff climb uphill for the ruins'
Majestic overviews, in guidebook blather.
One silver path across the waves to France,
And the long, incoming roar of faith from farther
East. (Or west: fanaticism's viral.
Numbing to think about the human cost.)
Sunset. Time to unwind a dawdling spiral
Down to the mall—where it dawns on us we're lost.
Suppose we ask this sporty adolescent.
"The station? Oh, no problem. Bang a right
Up there, then left, and on along the Crescent
About two minutes, and Bob's your uncle, mate."
You smiled, interpreted—but then you would,
Having yourself once been an "alien."
(The conditional of ironic likelihood
Is hackneyed. Stop me if I use it again.)
Transit to London as night falls. First star.
Abrupt flashes of interrupting light
Light up your eyes, your lips, your shimmering hair.
Friend. Nothing more. And Bob's your uncle, mate.
Copyright Credit: Alfred Corn, "Bob" from Unions. Copyright © 2014 by Alfred Corn. Reprinted by permission of Barrow Street Press.
Source: Unions (Barrow Street Press, 2014)