GINKO
….
of all the fall
en leaves I’ve
seen on this
walk to work
the ginko
reminds me
most of you
….
not the green
one or the yellowed
fringes sitting
hinged over
the sewer
grate
but
the mark
left on the newer
concrete sidewalk
where the seeping
rot impregnated
a brown shadow
on the gray
stippled plane
…
the few times
you’d visit we’d
walk halfway to
gether then
you’d turn around
and go
back
to the apart
ment for the day
…
I’d remember
your radian
at lunchtime
not a tight curve
but
a dimpled
gentle fan
……
George W. Shuster, Jr. lives in Rhode Island and spends much of his time in, on, and around Narragansett Bay. He studied poetry at Columbia University and the University of Virginia, and he is a 12th-generation direct descendant of Anne Bradstreet, the first woman poet of colonial America.
The Paddock Review 