No Good
Recognition
Don and I grew up together,
went to the same Sunday school classes,
were confirmed at the same time.
And this afternoon,
more than sixty years later,
as I’m on my way home
from the oncologist,
here Don is
where I don’t expect him
on the subway platform
at 125th,
looking straight at me,
looking straight through me,
not recognizing me at all,
maybe because I’m wearing
a mask,
though it’s him,
not disguised by a mask,
somehow about thirty-five
rather than seventy-five,
same hair, same cheerful eyes,
same build, the same Don,
looking, as I’ve known him
to look throughout
our adult lives,
more professional
than I’ve ever felt.
Yes, the same Don,
with business to do.
And we live in such a world
that I don’t walk up
to say hi
but take out my cell
and give him a call. [more/break]
Recognition 2
The Don on the platform,
phone in his hand,
is now reading something
on his screen, something
that must be related to work,
but he’s not the one
who answers.
Don does,
his phone telling him it’s me
so I say to him
he’s looking good,
handsome as ever,
but maybe a bit too preoccupied
to say hi
or maybe not expecting
to see me look so old,
looking through me again
as he gets on the D.
And so I talk to Don,
who’s at a Best Buy
shopping for a laptop.
We have some time
to discuss our ills
and then the A arrives
and I get on.
.
William Aarnes lives in Manhattan. His fourth and latest collection is The Hum in Human (Main Street Rag, 2022).
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Stone Poetry Quarterly 