The Poet’s Corner IV – August 5, 2020

Prettier than Paul Newman’s Eyes

that’s how pretty they were—Walt’s eyes.

Walter Grasvydas Geugaudas. I first laid my eyes

on Walt as he strode across the hot sand—

Eichelman Beach, 1959—barefoot lanky and

lovely—not thin—just right, his bare flesh

a designer set. I swear he wore his body

like a male model. He was so pretty

I was too overcome to let my eyes slip from waist

down over his front to his thighs. I was 15

and he was 17 and he had midnight black hair

thick and slightly wavy and the most intensely waterfall-blue

eyes I’d ever seen or have ever seen. But

he was shy. He talked slow when he talked.

And I think now his parents might have been “DP’s”—

that’s what we called them then—“displaced persons.”

I remember a lot of them tossing or kicking a ball

rather listlessly—rather all afternoonly—boredly

for grown men, and there were many of them

after World War II in Kenosha, Wisconsin. I only got close enough

to hear what wasn’t English—but

I eventually got close enough to hear Walt speak

his slow, selective English. He was Lithuanian,

the only Lithuanian I’d ever laid eyes on.

He was the kind of overpowering gorgeous you’d be warned against

by your fretful mother.

I didn’t listen. I stayed late at the big log fires

at Eichelman Beach with Walt and all his friends, “The Animals”—

I inched and edged closer to that magnificent…no,

not animal: 20th century David.

 I don’t remember how many times I kissed his forbidden lips,

stretched against him in the sand, fire flickering—

don’t remember how many next days I was grounded

after how many mad races home from the Beach, curfew tolling,

upsetting all the glory of summer, deliciously hot….

 Autumn came.

I don’t remember when Walter Grasvydas Geugaudas

left my sight.

 I was told he came home from Vietnam

without legs

I was told he always deliberately wheeled himself

 I was told he once deliberately wheeled himself

into the busy middle of the highway

 I wasn’t told, but knew how deliberately

he must have lifted what was left of himself

to shove the chair with his beautiful hips

to make it turn and tilt and slide

He must have then thrown himself down, hard.

                                    Eva Poole-Gilson

***

            This was one of the poems I sent to the Key West Literary Seminar 2016, hoping to be chosen by Billy Collins (U.S. poet laureate 2001-2003) for his week-long poetry workshop that summer.

            I made the cut, along with 10 or 11 others, and this poem was discussed during that intense week. I received feedback from all of them and Billy.

            Since then, I’ve not changed the poem much. Still, it would be wonderful if you’d respond to it. You’ll find it also in the Blog section of my website where you can leave comments in the Contact section. I’ll include it in my collection-in-progress, working title: Her Best, She Thought. www.evapoole-gilson.com

            But it also seems a good time to let this poem out early, doesn’t it?—to remind us of the millions of “displaced” people right now.

            On our stubbornly beautiful blue globe, wars, poverty, crime, and endless legal and immigration tragedies still plague us…. Can we end them?

***

“Memory in America suffers amnesia.”

—Meridel LeSueur, American writer, originally from Wisconsin

1900 – 1996

***