Different Slants

14^th & Main

by Robert M. Katzman

© August 7, 2017

It still glitters in my imagination

Gives me a suspended moment

Whenever

I slow down to stare at it

It is the absence of anything

The quiet vista that represented

Better times for the

New couple in town

14^th & Main

Down the long worn street farther north

Past the shuttered stores and

Businesses of small ambitions

A massive post office with

Biblical dimensions but only

One employee

Sometimes

A lawyer in a

Victorian house

And a lesser house by

Frank Lloyd Wright

14^th & Main

North of the grand historic homes

Entry barred by a stern barrier

Happier times frozen in

Sepia Rotagravure

On a bluff for the rich

Overlooking indifferent seagulls

East of a two-tree park where

Both of our eager dogs

Once loved to run

When we first came to experience

Obscure Racine

French-named town in a German state

14^th & Main

West of the grey concrete

Horizontal monolithic

Federal Interstate

A reminder that even

Rolling romantic cow-and-horse

 Farm country was noticed by

A faraway Eastern government

Steel hulks seemingly

Floating north and south

From a distance

14^th & Main

An arrow straight strip of road

Mindlessly running toward the Lake

Denny’s/Dairy Queen/McDonalds

Framing the question

“Where the hell are we now?”

Petering out at 31 and 20

The road narrows and hits

The kink in the road

Desperate part of town

Shuttered vaudeville marquee

Ghosts of once upon a time

Couples loved here, lived here

Left here

When all the good jobs dried up

14^th & Main

At an age when our values changed

Leaving big city glories behind us

Foreign restaurants and foreign movies

Bookstores and actual delicatessens

We willingly agreed to accept

A minimalized life together

A jet transformed into a stagecoach

Seeking less with time for more

The illusion of time for more

Wind through trees

Walking through crackling dead leaves

Store clerks with time to chat

A brick fireplace’s flame

Spearing the night sky

14^th & Main

Just a stretch of blue water

A top hat of billowy sky

A split breakwater to frame it

Hypnotically uniform wavelets

Soundless and sunny

Sometimes a lone sailboat

Always smack in the center of it

A strange tranquility

Offered itself to the two of us

Our worn selves and our worn dogs

An actual gasp at first our encountering

Such simplicity of small town beauty

14^th and Main

Eight seasons passed us by

Fate’s generosity turning elsewhere

Birdhouses hung and flowers planted

Friends made and time slowing down

Rediscovering conversation

Romantic pastel sunsets

Cloudless dark skies which

Allowed us to see stars

Then our dogs were gone

Then she was gone

And my presumed life was

Spinning, spinning, spinning

I wash a single plate after dinner

Swing alone in our lush backyard

Stare at the fireplace

But don’t make fires

Trying to let go

Trying to understand

What else could we have done?

Four decades seem like moments

But today the days…

So many hours

Now trudging thru time

But deep within me

Remains a glimmer

Of quietly pulsating hope

I still remain so glad

So very much appreciating

That at least she and I

 Shared that single

Mesmerizing mutual moment

When first we discovered

A place so casually

Ignorable and unsung

But not to us

Within a weary

Dot on a map

Racine Wisconsin

Blue water

Our Oz intersection

The simple serene beauty of

14^th and Main

                                                                  ***