Poetry Corner
Occasionally I’m moved to poetics. Since I have a number of serious and excellent poet friends, I keep my own efforts minimal. But if you live in San Antonio, you probably know the guy – and the street corner – that inspired this one:
Bob Bless
It’s not an easy corner.
Four lanes
no shoulders
intimidating curb, black
with the rubber of thousands
of oblivious tires.
He’s claimed this
concrete turf
his bright eyes
ever blue
against leathered,
weathered face,
for all I know
the lingering tan
from South Asian suns
beating harsh on
sweat-caked skin,
slapping branches
of strange trees
stinging his cheeks
boots that never dried
plodding, stealthy, tense,
through flat rice paddies,
tranquil and treacherous.
Is that where he left the legs?
The bright eyes, the grin
pure joy,
never a slump
humping his wheelchair
on and off the steep curb
as if gravity does not call his name
fearless in that
sliver of space
between sidewalk
and cars that could obliterate him
mid-conversation
mid-station change.
If you wave a hand
his wheels fly to you.
Hold out a little change
a buck or two,
you get back the grin. He
makes his own,
his world manufactured
on the spot, from
materials invisible
to the naked eye.
He donates for free,
waves and smiles
dances on his wheels
and lights his corner
with a gratitude
you’d think was unearned,
his toothless benediction the same
to every glassed-in passerby,
givers or no,
Bob bless you!
Bob bless you!
— Cece Box
Slightly Overdue