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ASTORIA SUITE
I—Questions
for the Blue Man
I remember you
were young,
So big, so tall, nervously smiling
As you glanced at us
While you whispered to my dad.
But mostly I remember you as blue.
How did you
get that assignment?
Were you there at the hospital
Or did you get the call in your cruiser?
Did a bored
dispatcher squawk
“Notification of death”
Was it just another address
Was your grizzled partner
Sipping coffee in the car
Thinking ahead
to the weekend’s Easter lamb
letting the rookie get broken in?
Did you pause
outside the door,
Hoping no one would be home
And the call pass to the next shift?
Wince when you
heard children
Playing inside?
Swallow hard before
knocking your four little knocks?
II—Thirty-two dollars and Fourteen Steps
Did you think
I didn’t know
Who was to blame?
Your mother had already given you away
Two days before. When I heard her curse you.
Scream “She’s yellow. How long
has she been laying here?
Get an ambulance!”
I thought this
was just another bad time
Like when mom waited until you went into
The bathroom, gathered us up
Threw all the money and silverware into a dirty gym bag
And ran with us in the middle of the night.
I thought this
was just another bad time
Like the time we all walked to the bank
Mom crying, to close out my first savings account
Thirty-two dollars.
So you could get your fix.
But this was
scarier, because
She wasn’t here. After your mother left
It was just you
I didn’t feel secure
Knew we weren’t safe.
And hoped mom would get well soon.
I heard the
knock as I was helping
My sister out of her crib.
Years later,
you told me
you took fourteen steps
from the kitchen to the door
As you
measured that fateful number.
I want to believe
That for those fourteen steps
Dope wasn’t on your mind.
III—
Disconnect, Years Later
What were the
last words you said to me?
I heard the phone take the coins and your words
I spoke your name, but the receiver was dead
I didn’t get the end
The time we had ran out
It was supposed to be unlimited
And I never got a warning
It never comes
when we
Are speaking of something trivial.
but always in the midst of turmoil
when we are touching the raw nerves of the situation
in the middle of your answer
I fish for change, dial as fast
As I can, trying to recapture that moment
But when I get through again
there is that petulant silence
As I know
For a split second at least
You are wondering how
Coincidental the cut off
Really was.
What were the
last words you said to me?
You see I was only eight, and I can’t remember
No school,
Easter vacation,
Phone disconnected
the hospital couldn’t call
A policeman knocked on the door.
Dad told us
and I longed for your voice,
touched your half finished embroidery
I spoke your name
but the receiver was dead
I heard my sisters crying in my arms
As the policeman left with our innocence
I didn’t get
the end
The time we had ran out
It was supposed to be unlimited
And I never got a warning
Each Good
Friday
I fish for those words
wonder what you said
what you would say to me now.
Because I need someone to tell me
Where it went wrong, and how to make it right
Each year the
images of you
Fade from oil, to pastel
To watercolor,
And the words I do remember
Grow fainter, and fainter
The only thing
That doesn’t decay
Is the silence
That disconnects me from
The answers
Tom Behnke is a transplanted New Yorker, currently living in Brookfield,
Connecticut. By daylight, I am a computer consultant and trainer and
creative writer instructor. His work has been published in BAD DREAMS,
CONNECTIONS, ETERNITY ONLINE, ETHEREAL DANCES, FABLES, FRIGHTNET,
GATHERING DARKNESS, LUCIDITY, The ORPHIC CHRONICLE, POET'S SANCTUARY,
and TALEBONES Magazines. Insomnia, the poem published in TALEBONES,
received an honorable mention in Ellen Datlow's and Terry Windling's
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, Twelfth Edition. He has recently
completed his first novel, and is collaborating on stage and
screenplays. |