In a dark subway tunnel parallel trains rush forward while I stare out the window. And in the sooty glass I see my reflection and a Chassid traveling on the parallel train. His bearded face stares down at his leather-bound book. He never lifts his eyes. I assume he’s reading a holy tome, while my reflection hangs over his shoulder and seems to be reading it also. I’d prefer to raise my head towards the actual heaven, but above me is just the subway car’s steel ceiling and its flickering lights. Both of us sway as the trains move, but he is davening to his own rhythm and I am rocking just to the jarring of the train. Work-a-day motormen, and not divine angels, speed us on our way. Then the tunnels diverge. We no longer are traveling in the same direction. But then we never were. Get a sneak

Pastoral—Beethoven. But the Sixth was never my afraid-of-the-dark comfort, for when I was a shadow-frightened boy only the lullaby droning of passing cars calmed me to sleep. But today I left the radio on and now I hear breathing even when pausing my own. Beethoven and breathing. Clearly no Beethoven lies next to me. But the breathing is real, real and rhythmic, primal and soothing like the Pastoral. Sometime in the night my son found his way to my side. Perhaps he woke in his shadowy room, frightened by a bad dream or worse, disillusioned by a good one. I hear my seven-year-old’s heaving chest. Is he too old to be here? What does it matter, he’s here. Maybe on some future, cold-sweat night, when he’s fully grown and alone like me awake and tuned to Beethoven, he’ll call for me.

He saw her, and yelled stop. She ran out. He followed, a crowd gathered by the garbage can where the chase ended. The el train's roaring brings all hands to the ears, except hers. Middle-aged plain woman, disordered gray hair, shapeless smock for a dress, chubby, cornered creature, clutching not food, not clothes, not medicine, but a Cosmopolitan magazine, with the cover girl's glamorous eyes scrunched by ten tightened fingers. A daydream exposed. Crying leave me alone, she offers the spoiled merchandise back. The store owner accepts, then throws it in the garbage and says forget it. The crowd whittles away; the woman slowly walks past the grocery, the bakery, the beauty parlor. Another el roars by.

Not sweet like the bees nor itchy like the mosquitoes nor "ah" inspiring like the butterflies nor so blasted everywhere like the ants; neither do they spoil a meal by crawling in it. We call them primitive, and to us they're invisible, especially to those who don't read. Little is written about them in books though in books they certainly are. The Koran, Bhagavid-gita, Talmud, they're catholic in their tastes. They'll unbind any tome in time. To them it's all thought for food. The last grand supper will come eventually. They'll leave our bodies to the worms. It's our immortality they hunger for. The final period will be their droppings.

This morning I woke up suddenly hating lox. Once, when the corner store was sold out of it, I drove six miles and stood on line, stood on line. Divine lox, a holy wafer when it's placed on the tongue with cream cheese and a bagel. But this morning I woke up suddenly hating lox. Actually, it's only the flesh of a deceased salmon. It smells too much like its fishy self. It's too oily and salty, at least for my tastes this morning. It's fat for bears before their hibernation. And that flesh is as red as my lady's lips even without her lipstick. Look, she is stirring. She'll be awake soon. I walk back from the kitchen to the bedroom. In morning light she turns her sleepy face towards me. Her moist ruby lips pucker as if tasting pickled herring. And now all scarlet seems grey. But it's the texture mostly, for too many times my tongue has caressed a dead fish, or one nearly dead, on its last few flops. Maybe I'll try whitefish, but that's much too mushy in my mouth. No, something different, an exotic new taste cornflakes, crispy and sweet when viscous honey is added, crunchy and tickling to my tongue, a new touch teasing my oral cavity, a prickly feel, a crackling sound, as teeth and tongue learn a new dance. But too soon the flakes will settle into sogginess as they sink in stale milk.

My first job was selling ice cream on the beach. I was a peddler in a sea of bare, sandy skin, and so I saw many rough men with eagles or sexy ladies engraved on their arms or shoulders. In those days, among women, only freak-show ladies dared sport such nonconformity. But the world is a freakish place. And on the beach were too many women with hideous blue numbers seared in their arms, which they proudly did not hide. Were it not for the accounting each evening, I would have gladly given away my vanilla and chocolate to them, and considered the sweets paid in full. Today, skin artistry is in vogue. The stylus is in fashion, especially among many ladies. Flowers are engraved on legs and arms, and blue designs sit seductively on the small of many backs. Tattoo is a homonym. Another definition is a sunset melody or a kind of taps, a lone bugle summoning all to return and rest. The number of ladies with numbers on their arms dwindles, soon it will be zero. I'll remember them. But today, let blue flowers bloom on human limbs and divinely beautiful patterns grace the skin on the backs of all ladies, and let those cruel numbers burned in flesh never again become the fashion.

Grandpa won it for boxing, when palookas such as Battling Bernstein, Two Fists D'Angelo, and Shillelagh O'Hara would swagger to the ring and climb the ropes hoping to rise above the ghetto. That gold pocket watch was a brilliant accessory for a high-class suit, but grandpa never could afford to wear one. I was seven when he called me over and said he would bequeath it to me. He was always so proud of his fancy words. He smiled, patted my head and said, "When the great referee counts ten, when the bell clangs ending the last round." Soon after ten was counted with no loud bells to mark the finish. But he was buried in an upscale suit. It's been decades. The watch spills out of the shoebox. The minute hand sways loosely then falls off the center pin, and the hour hand quickly follows. The hands rattle around the circle of time. The broken trophy is still worth its ounces in gold. But the price of those ounces varies hourly, and I have no way to track the hours now, even if I wanted to. I imagine grandpa's smile in the blank watch face, I see my reflection in the crystal cover of the timeless timepiece, and for a second I'm heedless of minutes and hours, for no hand points the way.

"Open the door, Richard," was Henry's usual greeting. Open the door, Richard is now a long forgotten popular song. But on that long ago day Henry and his wife were almost done loading, and the old familiar truck had its engine idling. Gray hair, weather-beaten face, big smile, broken teeth, old Henry said, "Bye kid, and remember the last potato farmer in Brooklyn and his good-for-nothing farm. Rich, live up to your name. Don't be a poor dirt scratcher like me." (But I soon learned that there are so many other ways to be poor.) His wife gave me one last piece of homemade pound cake, then one last chair was loaded and tied down, and they were gone. Their old house became a wino's shack until it burnt down later that summer. In the nearby pond, the frogs I use to hunt dug into the mud that fall but never came up to greet the next spring, for tractors scraped all topsoil and surfaces away, and the new housing projects rose almost as swiftly as weeds. I don't recall the exact address, or if that place ever had an address except Henry's farm. It was just north of Coney Island next to the rail yard and in sight of Coney Island Creek. In another fifty years when I will have caught up to Henry and filled him in on what happened to his old place, you who are now listening, if you're a young poet, should write a poem about hearing a poem about the last potato farm in Brooklyn. Remember Henry's name even if you forget mine. And after five decades, if you've forgotten some details, then improvise. I did.