Portrait of a Man, c. 1575
by Benjamin Dahlbeck
The last three years
have been one long agony.
Watching you from a distance.
Hearing your voice only on the wind.
Seeing you on the street each and every day.
Knowing you move further and further away from me.
Once you spoke of my full, sensual lips
as we lay hidden under trees
alongside the hastening river,
our bodies touching.
You stroked my ear,
my lips enticed your cheek.
And more. Much more.
Do you remember?
I never forget.
Our apprenticeships began and
crushed a small piece of our souls.
The great writer and the famous painter
instead a junior blacksmith and a simple tailor.
Expectations must always be fulfilled.
With our duties came more scrutiny,
so the grass and flowers
at our place under the trees by the river
blossomed and thrived
while my heart lay fallow.
Outwardly I pretended happiness.
I did my work well. Especially your birthday shirt.
Silk is not too fine for a blacksmith.
I saw you wear it once.
At the fair, when you were arm-in-arm
with the chandler's daughter.
Did she know it was from me?
When people asked, I spoke of a maiden
who had caught my fancy. Often.
Perhaps too often, as folk began to
wonder why this maiden never
appeared by my side at fairs or festivals.
When the boy came to tell me the news
of your wedding banns, I boxed his ears
and knocked him to the floor.
An intense, spontaneous explosion of passion
unknown to me since we last lay side by side
at our place under the trees by the river.
A brief lunacy overtook me and thoughts
of poisoning the chandler's daughter, even you,
entered my mind. Plenty of mercury about.
But the hatter's madness had not a strong grip upon me.
Dare I say lover's grief embraced me more firmly?
I made a shirt to wear at your wedding.
Black silk and velvet.
Small ovals running down the front.
Tears I cannot express externally.
A high collar to cover the neck
you stroked so tenderly an age ago.
Crisp white ruffles to help keep
my head erect and a witness to
the permanence of my loss.
But I cannot bear it.
Instead, I have found an artist,
a luckier man than I,
to paint my portrait in this garment.
My wedding gift to you.
He is highly skilled. I did not expect to see
the sorrow in my eyes so clearly.
And yet the mischievous glint
you elicited on so many occasions
remains as well. Look to that.
Hang this portrait where I can gaze forever
upon you,
for I will not be there.
I shall be at our place under the trees.
One last time will I feel the kindling of my heart,
only, instead of plunging into your embrace,
I shall fold into the arms of the hastening river
to be carried further and finally away from you.
Benjamin is currently finishing an English in Writing degree at Northwestern and is very excited to have his first published work appear in these pages.
Ballad of the Little League Star: A Self-Portrait
( In Honor of Reginald Shepherd )
by John Medieros
It never was the same, of course, except it never changed for him, when the others gathered together in one shower stall after the game, lined up like prisoners in a concentration camp, all in line, all single file, all waiting for the hand behind the barred window to stretch out and pass the next white towel.
That moment lasted forever. It is lasting still. He is there, thirty-five by now, watching the boys hide themselves from each other. That is what they still are—boys—despite the hair around their nipples, despite the erections they try to cover with lather and towel, despite the fact that they look down at each other in anticipation and competition, knowing that they will not talk about this for weeks.
They are still boys despite the jock strap, the thickened muscle, the deep voice, the hairy knuckle, the Adam's apple. They are still boys, with lunch bags still packed by their mothers each day.
It never was the same, of course, except it never changed for him, when the other players decided they did not want him on their team, never asking him about his undefeated record, his .666 batting average, his size 10 cleats, his ability to hit a home run from both the left and right sides of the plate.
They noticed instead his eyes as they roamed the locker-room benches, his head as it bowed as if keeping a secret, the extra time he took to fold and unfold his clothes. He looks back at those days, how they've come and gone, how they've lost pieces of themselves along the way, how they held promises that washed away like dirt on the shower tile.
John Medeiros is an award-winning writer and poet living in Minneapolis. Please visit his website at www.jmedeiros.net .
