Lyrical Somerville for the week of Dec. 28

You can tell a lot about a person by just sitting with them in a coffee shop, or in the case of poet Rebecca Kaiser Gibson, in a local Dunkin‚Äô Donuts. Here Gibson studies the man behind the cup. To have your work considered for the Lyrical send it to: Doug Holder  25 School St. Somerville, Mass. 02143  dougholder@post.harvard.edu

Dunkin’ Donuts – Somerville, Mass.

I was there with a guy whose uncles tossed him
into manhood and the shipyard in San Francisco
where men meant muscle
to hoist barrels, fists
for ropes and children’s tricks
with hard candy. It’s not like lawyers’
this wariness, or college politicians,’
no one talks. It goes without
saying. A woman, for instance,
was seen top to toe, stopping here and there,
didn’t matter what she was wearing He knew
when to look eye to eye, when to cut off.
I was there with a guy southwestern in the butt,
tight as a prairie hare’s, who knew
when to touch
me to say she’s mine.
I’d seen the fence thin thigh
twined in jewelweed, And the still beneath
the peaty soil hid by rhododendron
in a West Virginia wood. I saw the pride
of hawthorn, isolate, Its tender limbs gone hard
for a season without ceremony.
He held a coffee cup.

Rebecca Kaiser Gibson