Ode to my Departing Refrigerator

My son says it’s been like a pet,
except it’s lasted longer.
Come and gone are two cats, one dog,
two hamsters and half a dozen goldfish.
Gone too is the mouse we caught and whom we named Jim
and placed in Tupperware upon our aging appliance
before he unwisely escaped,
apparently forgetting that our two cats at that time
were alive and well.
Poor Jim.

But our Whirlpool,
this beast of refrigeration,
has been steadfast and true,
its cooling coils
coming to my emotional rescue
after a long day,
awaiting my arrival when I would
enter its cavern and retrieve a bottle of frosty goodness
or a slice of last night’s pizza.

This relic of the 90s
is older than my 18 year-old son,
older than my 23 year-old daughters.
It’s seen the eastern hills of Pennsylvania
and witnessed the plains along the highways
of Ohio and Indiana,
at last dropping its weight upon a hardwood floor in suburban Chicago.
It’s outlasted dishwashers, washers and dryers, stoves and ovens.
Hell, aside from their parents,
my children’s most consistent companion
has been our refrigerator,
whose plastic veneer tolerated their smudgy fingerprints,
held annual holiday cards and calendars,
retro magnets with funny sayings,
(my favorite, “You use a wine stopper?  That’s adorable!”),
and the coolest marble maze toy you’ve ever seen.

Its surface has lacked luster for some time now,
and I’m ashamed to admit that I started researching
a replacement over two years ago.
“Surely, it can’t last much longer,” I said to my wife.
And I’m certain that our Whirlpool overheard this slight,
kicked its coils into overdrive,
and thought, “I’ll show you who can’t last much longer!”

But now it freezes lettuce in the crisper drawer
and leaves puddles of water on its top shelf,
an incontinent aging edifice.
It knows.  It knows its time has come to make way
for a young strapping Whirlpool
who’s supposed to save me up to $200 a year in energy costs,
but who will likely only live to be 10-15 years old,
this according to the saleswoman who took $100 off the asking price.
Ten to fifteen years!  What a joke.
Why, these young up-and-comers don’t know the first thing
about loyalty and stamina.
They’re not fit to chill my Whirlpool’s lunchmeat.

But even if I live to buy another five refrigerators
I will remember.
I will remember this cooling companion
who kept our vegetables fresh,
our leftovers tasty,
and our ice cream delicious,
taking off the edges of trying days,
cooling over 25,000 meals in its lifetime.

Thank you, old friend.

A Death Poem

Death has been on my mind lately because there’s been a lot of it, some of it personal, some of it the public figure variety, most recently that of Neil Peart of Rush who I’d seen perform live numerous times.  The outer circles insulating my charmed life have been breached by the passing of those around the same age as me or just a few years down the line, so mortality has taken on new resonance.  I’m not depressed about it nor am I fatalistic, but I can’t pretend it’s not there.  It has to be reckoned with.  So, time for some poetry!

WHEN DEATH IS ALL AROUND

When death is all around
not even breath can be assumed.
Hyper-conscious.  Present. Aware.
It’s what you’ve been aiming for all along.
Yet the privilege shared by
witnessing others’ passing
falls flat upon weary ears
like a stone on the sunken earth.
Whether it’s “wrapped in the cradle of His bosom”
or “a dot of light in the sky’s sphere,”
there is no comfort in words of comfort.
Because lately it’s been friends
and friends of friends,
and mothers and lovers and brothers and sons,
wives and husbands
and old acquaintances.
No, not even breath can be assumed,
nor the sunrise,
nor lilac’s bloom,
nor pangs of hunger,
nor sated desires,
nor sacred moments.
For in another’s absence 
beckon those final empty seconds,
when all we hold dear
will be loosed into the ether
of God’s hollow embrace.

A New Poem

I'm in a bit of a pissy mood tonight, and when you're in a pissy mood, sometimes there's nothing better than a poem.

Guy A and Guy B

I sat on the couch in your parents’ living room.

You sat in the chair across from me.

I said I wanted to ask you out before anyone else did,

because I’d heard some other guys were thinking about it;

I had to beat them to the punch.

And you said yes, but you had to wonder,

and I knew you had to wonder,

“Who are the other guys?”

And after we watched Tom Hanks do his best with subpar material,

we ate crab legs,

and you must have been thinking,

“Where would Guy A and Guy B have taken me?  A place that serves duck and lamb instead?”

I eat duck and lamb now.  But I grew up eating meatloaf and mashed potatoes.

For me, crab was a stretch.

You’re lucky I didn’t take you to a place that served

scalloped potatoes and ham.  That was a staple in my home.

So was beef stroganoff.

And tuna casserole.

For you, I ordered bottom dwellers.

By comparisson, a delicacy.

When I graduated, you wrote me a letter and got me a pen.

It was engraved.

And I wondered, “What did you get for Guy A and Guy B?”

A Poem: Where We End Up

I dream of an outdated map

that highlights the location of a friend who lives nearby

but the friend hasn’t lived nearby in over twenty years.

The weight of this realization leads to dry tears

the kind only shed in dreams

but when I awake they’re the real deal.

And now begins another day, too early, too isolated.

They say the world is smaller than ever

but to me it is still too vast, too expansive.

I live in a place where many people have lived all their lives

and down the street are high school buddies

whom they see regularly.

Most of my high school friends don’t even live in the same time zone.

Geneva.  Munich.  Portland.

Might as well be Mars.  Jupiter.  Saturn.

We see each other once every year or two

only to return to the daily grind.

The modes of communication available to us now,

signals that traverse great distances in seconds

are underutilized.

Or unused entirely.

A man of God recently said to me, “It is not what you have or what you do.

It’s where you end up.”

Well then, let me offer a little prayer

for the finish line.

I hope we all end up living on the same block.

There I go again.  Dreaming.