The Boy In The Boat

by Robert Klein Engler

This morning I go around my apartment singing. Later, I walk across the Clark Street bridge to meet an old friend for lunch at a hotel by the river. A sightseeing boat passes below. In the boat, a wide-eyed boy looks up and waves. I wave back, and get a lump in my throat. Such purity in what is essentially human. He does not even know me, and yet he does, so he waves. Passing by waving, that is an attitude to take. Here we go, on our way to the stars, waving at strangers who are not at all strange. At the hotel, the complexity of flags and brass Chinese fu-dogs greet me in the lobby. Finding the hotel bar, I sit next to an old man who seems restless. I imagine he is anxious about death. The bellboy, in his red waistcoat, offers to take my bags. I have none, but tell him, here are the bags of memories I carried across the water. The heavy one has all the things my mother touched with the weight of her sorrow. I begin to understand now the gravity of many things; the weight of a cast on a broken limb, the weight of wounds that will not heal, the weight of these bones no one will pick up. The small bag holds the name of one I love, I say. Be careful, don't drop anything. I was singing his name this morning. In and out, the revolving doors of the hotel drill into time, swapping pie cuts of air, in and out, and I remember my father's house has many mansions. There, the plates are ringed with gold, goblets of light are like music in our hands, vaults swell with crystal chandeliers. The antichrist waits in the lobby, wearing a pink dress and white earrings. Her flight leaves at one forty-five. The waiters are setting up for tea now. Bone colored cups with delicate handles shaped like question marks are carried on silver trays to a matron wearing a noose of fur. Nearby, the staircase that falls to the floor like lava with its rails of brass rain leads to a wall of mirrors. Beyond the mirrors the world that is only a reflection of this world appears. I look at my watch. It is late. I wait for news from the Balkans.