ONE AISLE OVER
James M. Truxell
November 12, 1992
"Keep your voice down, son," he says
With a smile that seems to remember
How it was to be five.
Excited to be with his father on an
Unexpected outing,
The boy smiles back.
Just the two of them.
Together.
One aisle over.
Not wishing to intrude on their
Private moment in this public place,
I snatch a look
Beyond my Egg McMuffin and the headlines,
To the next aisle over where
He sits, fair-skinned
Beneath a blonde clutter of curls.
In a lowered voice
He laughs with his father.
I wish for a note to secretly pass
The older one, and it would say,
"Please, it's okay. I rather like his volume."
Instead, I pretend to read
And eavesdrop my way back a lifetime
When I, at his age, proudly strode through
The door of Brenner's Bakery with
My father and waited
With stifled laughter for the waitress
To ask if she could help him.
And he would always reply, "No thanks!
We just came in to smell."
And though, for all my giggling,
I never heard him, he would order
Donuts and we'd sit and taste how
Good they were.
These years hence it is not the taste
Of those sweet confections that claims
My reverie, but the taste of how
Sweet life was there with him,
Celebrating Saturday's rite.
Just the two of us.
Together.
One aisle over there is the
Alternation of silence and chuckling
As the father devours his paper,
The son his meal,
And a shared cartoon convulses both.
Behind my paper now,
Raised up before my face
To prevent intrusion on my
Private moment in this
Public place,
I weep,
Alternating between warm memories
And a sadness that memories are all they
Now are, or evermore can be.
And I wish I was five again.
One aisle over.
How lucky he is, I think to myself
And silently bless them both
As I pass them by with folded headlines grown
Too irrelevant to read through reddened eyes.
Behind the wheel -
That universal private place -
I surrender to the blessing
This moment has to give:
Warm tears of gratitude and sadness.
Pulling out into traffic
(A dangerous place to theologize!)
I say half out loud: "I wish I had a
Father. Again."
And I realize that indeed I do -
Have had all along -
Who helps me know when to lower my voice,
And when to laugh out loud;
Who prepares a table before me
And fills my cup to overflowing
In every public and private place.
There's just one catch, though, I think:
What I have to do to find -
Or be found by -
Him,
Is to become, once again,
That little curly-headed child,
One aisle over.
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