Category: Love

Red faced
short breathed
30 pounds overweight – at least – probably 50.
I thought of my own physical,
BMI,
blood pressure,
ECG,
laboratory tests
and
probing finger ….
he couldn’t have passed the same medical examination.

The doctor said he didn’t, of that there was no doubt
he would have failed then
and
would fail now. “ So, how come?”

Antarctica in summer is winter in America,
for North Minnesota,
work imitates the seasons : fecund in spring and summer
barren in autumn
dormant in obese cold and wizened sun.

A man with two children and wife
well-paid job,
or unemployment?
Self esteem, or Food Stamps?

Vanishings,
what can be seen, and what can be signed away …
“ I take my physician’s hat off –
and put my social worker’s responsibility on.”

Accommodation and food came with the job –
neither extravagant,
the food rather institutional
and a single room
with bookshelf and wardrobe.
A television and refrigerator could be had on request
signed up for,
no money
just an agreement to return at the end of contract.

I asked the accommodation manager what it was worth
“a replacement – seven or eight hundred dollars.”
Replacement: that’s what had happened –
one of my staff
had asked to keep his television until the last day
and then replaced it –
with a cheaper model.
Did the better one go with him?
“Did he steal it you mean…… I would imagine so.”

A black moment, I could feel it coming
forms
explanation
interviews with security.

Time …….
the click of a camera, the creep of a glacier
a bride to walk up the aisle ….
a new divorcee to leave a lawyer’s office.

The year had gone as well as I hoped
I felt pride …..
not immense
but some
and now
at the end of the game
inattention
a dropped ball I could see it
a request for the contract to cover client’s loss
it would have to be explained – a black mark.

The man across the desk spoke
“I know you’d have had nothing to do with this
and would not approve ….. I can bury this one.”

“Gerald” –
people still spoke his name,
sometimes,
occasionally,
infrequently,
but
always in the softest possible way
handled the sentence in which it appeared
as if mohair, or silk.

He was gone before I started.
Gone from the workplace,
the town,
the world
one day as afternoon turned to evening
coming back from extension classes
for his diploma
motorbike + truck + inattention = death.

I was the inheritor –
after the inheritor.
His name was still on the staff board
my predecessor’s removed before I commenced –
mine, sometime between Monday and Friday, of my last week
but Gerald’s remained.