A Day At The Races

When you wake up after twelve hours

The stove is cold, there's ice in the water bucket

— clouds outside and snow, the noise of a crow,

The only sound; until your wife cries

From an upper bunk, Honey, I'd like some coffee.

Luther chuckles. I nod, excuse myself  for the men's room

Next to me stretches a teacher

Who once warned me not to get married

Too early. Elderly now, but having done well

In real estate as a second career. He says

Well, well, as if  he can't recall my name.

But buys me a drink and talks of  his wayward

Daughter. When he mentions her married last name

I tell him I have met her, but leave off at that    . . .

He squints like a badger. In my wife's family, he resumes,

After a jostling by a drunken salesman, there's a

Sort of stupid gene that runs through the whole outfit,

Being half  Finnish, half  Dutch — or maybe something

Cancelled something    . . .    I notice a protuberance, a small growth

At the edge of  his eye, hanging like a broken thread

I always thought, I say, your daughter had a charming

Personality. He hunches his shoulders. Waking to dread,

The debts of  dread — but I couldn't help him.

Neither did I want to. On the way out

I spot my first wife chatting with a small-time gangster —

She flutters a wave my way, a Victorian flutter