From My Boss Who Got It

My boss went to see The Boss when Bruce

got back together with the E Street Band

and they played The Meadowlands, a place

somewhere in the swamps of Jersey

I’ve never been and don’t foresee going—

too much driving and too many peep,

which is how my French aunt who avoided

crowds put it. Instead, I put my feet                                                                       

in my sneaks and walked to work, took

messages from nasty peeps, sorted mail,

typed a will, made copies of Hobson

Jobson, then walked back home to my dogs

and flowers as if I’d been far away,

though it’s less than a mile to my office,

while my boss was driving to the Bronx

from Boston to catch a Yankees game

after a day trip to Martha’s Vineyard

(just repeating it makes me dizzy)

before he caught the music. It caught

me long ago, a boomer  in bed                                                                            

with the measles, Jo Stafford, Sinatra,

Kirsten Flagstad singing arias                                                                         

on neighborhood radios. If it’s good                                                                      

I want it regardless in my ears

each night when I water my garden,

cook dinner, fold laundry. Today

when I woke I wanted a cello

to play when my children go back

to college to soften the darkness

and quiet.  It’s August, you see,

or would if you looked through the window

of Doonan and Graves where no one wears

shoes when the boss is away—discalced

I call it—and what I got was a white

cotton tee with the Boss’s picture on it

from my boss who got it by driving

as if the distance was only the walk

through the office from his desk to mine.

– Cynthia Duda

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