Albany Winter
After John Cheever’s “The Swimmer”
In the foyer closet by the staircase,
he finds a silk scarf, smells the lingering
sweetness, tangerine and cream,
his dry fingertips snagging the
soft weave. He ponders the call
of a bullfrog by the backyard pool,
cannot believe it’s gone, all of it,
nothing left except dust on windowsills,
a lonely, white scarf.
He blames himself—he coveted
too much for it to be good. She is far
away, the kids dispersed to distant gray cities,
the house—incredibly—is empty,
and he can see a time, years from now,
when he’ll be old and so in love
with this moment that he’ll have to
get up from the table and make tea,
whiskey or vodka too harsh. He’ll sip hot
sweetness from an old mug, listen
to his grandfather’s cabin creak
on a raw cold night. He will love
this moment only then, when he is old
and alone and lonely: the scarf against
his face, bitterness on his tongue, the taste
of emptiness. The wind will stamp outside,
night falling in a small window,
winter, the fields golden and dead,
just outside Albany, in the old house
with gravestones down back by the creek
in the shadow of a dormant willow,
his family name eroded,
but the strange skulls and wings
of death still clear, still indelible.
(Originally appeared in Threepenny Review)
