[Turner Cassity]

Into His Hand


… cupped in sleep, you’d slip a nickel. Such
gentle stealth: no wrist or finger stirred.
His O-mouth gaped, his snoring chuffed and whirred.
That sly transaction: all you knew of touch.
Double shifts of duty on the subways
conducting a shrill orchestra of doors.
After, rotgut with Clancy’s dull-eyed boors.
Back home he’d drop right off; you’d foray
into father’s room, bearing your bright coin.
You loved imagining him, wealthy-waking—
but did he like the joke? It wasn’t spoken.
Today that quiet man lies dead. I join
you, husband, in a rite of our own making:
tucking in his cupped, cosmetic hand
          this subway token.



Comments:
The pronouns need straightening out, and I find the writing, as writing, too complicated for the material. Curiously, the poem gives the effect of free verse, and I do not say this in disparagement.