For Dr. Gerald J. Zinfon, Professor of English and Poet
Champagne, home-grown tomatoes
and peppers, angel hair pasta,
California strawberries with
vanilla ice cream;
Conversation peppered
with fresh jazz, the table
graced with one out-of-season,
honest-red tulip.
Dinner cut and cooked by Dr. Z.,
who saunters through poetry classes
by day, scratching at our heads
like a rooster pecking
at the sun-dried earth,
telling us to learn about words —
and we do.
Through three courses
and four wines,
he talks to his soon-to-be grads,
tells us of his just-married son
and old friends — a priest,
a Vietnam vet.
He speaks of Simic,
and an all-night
Army fire stoked
in the Florida glades
to keep the snakes away.
During dessert, his lady smiles
modestly at his full-face grins,
perhaps like me, wanting
to stay in this moment — with him,
flush with fifty years of living.
After espresso, I stand to leave,
then pause, stealing
a backward glance
at the son who sits so sure
of his place in the framed glass
on the side-board server …
belonging, even when absent,
in this man’s home.