about buying a customized poem

A young man, his long, damp-brown hair pulled behind his ears, sat curled over a spiral notebook at a little TV table set up along a high-foot-traffic area. I passed him on my walk to the drug store. He had posted a handmade sign: "custom poems."

 

But he is gathering his things when I pass him again on my way back. "Is it too late to get a poem?"

 

"No, it's not too late," he says, pausing, resetting the table. "What do you want the poem to be about?"

I look down. "How about—when you're about to see old friends after not having seen them in a long time."

 

"Ah. How long has it been?"

 

"At least 10 years."

 

"That's a long time. Okay." He sits down and goes to work. He should take his time, alone.

 

I step away and watch a family take pictures by the city's 20-foot Christmas tree, in front of its white lights' bright confidence in a January evening willing to forget that New Years happen and ever come.

 

Some 5 minutes later he stands, holding a page ripped from his notebook.

 

"Read it and let me know if it makes sense." I read. It's a poem written by a young man. "Does it make sense? Do you like it?"

 

"Yeah. It's good."

"Good. I'm glad you like it."

 

I hand him $10 and thank him. He appreciates it, he says.

 

I should have told him how I really feel about seeing old friends, how conflicted I am. But it's a poem by a young man.

 

(posts) a John Prine song

"One Red Rose" almost gives you intimacy even when you listen to it while driving mom's car alone to the grocery store over the holidays.

about something said in the breakroom

Lisa, her current husband, and her son from her previous marriage to a convict drove to Toronto during the holidays. Lisa brought back to the office some maple cookies. She told us, as we forced down the cookies, that Toronto is great because, immigration-wise, residents there describe the city as a mosaic rather than a melting pot. This elicited an "Aww" from Cheryl. Lisa then informed us that Toronto was what New York City wishes it was: a city in which people don't have that I'm-too-cool attitude. Also, Toronto has a China Town, Little Italy, and so on.

something about "The Thanksgiving Visitor" by Truman Capote

The Thanksgiving Visitor returns to the childhood days Truman Capote wrote about in his previously published semi-autobiographical short story, A Christmas Memory. This time, a schoolyard bully, Odd Henderson, menaces young Buddy. To his horror, Buddy's older cousin, Sook, invites Odd to Thanksgiving dinner in hopes of ending the boys' feud. At dinner, Buddy attempts to publicly humiliate Odd, but this revenge scheme fails. Buddy learns about cruelty, the lesson of Two Wrongs, and the dignity of empathy.

After his failed attempt at revenge, Buddy sulks in the shed. Capote writes:

The door to the shed was ajar, and a knife of sunshine exposed a shelf supporting several bottles. Dusty bottles with skull-and-crossbone labels. If I drank from one of those, then all of them up there in the dining room, the whole swilling and gobbling caboodle, would know what sorry was. It was worth it, if only to witness Uncle B.’s remorse when they found me cold and stiff on the smokehouse floor; worth it to hear the human wails and Queenie’s howls as my coffin was lowered into cemetery depths.

Note: The Thanksgiving Visitor was first published in the November 1967 issue of McCall's magazine.