the wasteland
i met a girl at starbucks she said: i always
wanted to be named after a month we settled
on december her eyes black skin ebony many
say jesus was ethiopian father of the lost tribe
wandering north on florida highways
i met a man at my mother’s retirement rez a child
psychiatrist named ted a pioneer in my field
ted took a liking to me +gave me a book on child
psychiatry when i mentioned it was on my office
shelf ted said:
you’d be better off reading it
he also gave me 17 pages of poetry each with the
month of april writ large: whan april with her shoures
soote + april is the cruellest month chaucer + eliot
among others
when ted’s wife died my mother said: ted’s hungry so
we took him to the cafeteria +bought him lunch i lifted his
walker into the trunk ted’s dead now and i kind of wish
they’d struck up a relationship she’d have loved to marry
a doctor or a baseball player
__
April is the cruellest month, breeding
lilacs out of the dead land mixing
memory and desire stirring dull roots
with spring rain (t.s eliot the wasteland 1922)
Summer 2019 RIP Dr. Ted Rosen ..a mensch..
songanddancegirl 