Читать книгу The Underground Man - Jasen Sousa - Страница 7

I took a photo of an old man in Maine

who sat down gingerly in a wooden chair

after removing multiple avocado green

tarps off his merchandise. It was about 9:15 A.M.

and the dampness from the moist dirt ground

crawled inside my socks, up my legs,

and drilled holes into my flesh. Water from

an overnight rain found its way inside soup bowls,

cologne bottles, and cups that I might have seen

before in my grandmother’s cellar.

His thick glasses weighed on his cheekbones

like the stacks of hammers, wrenches, and saws

that put a slight bend in the center of his tool’s table.

This man’s life and interests

were played out: Star Trek comics,

Coca-Cola bottles, Billie Holiday records,

and stuff that didn’t quite add up

like the floral china set that maybe

belonged to the love of his life.

I couldn’t have been more wrong

about my definition of nowhere. What is nowhere?

Radiant foliage? Winding roads? Christmas tree farms?

What is somewhere? Crowded subways? Addiction? The Corner?

I was burrowed in the middle of a man’s life

and realized how time has a humorous way of determining

what is and what is not valuable to someone anymore.

Antique man sat in his lonely wooden chair

for hours on end in a flannel shirt and grey beard

waiting for others to come by and replace what they

lost in their lives along the way.

I looked across the street and felt like

I was the only person who heard

the thumps of autumn leaves

falling inside of a Maine cemetery.