☀ Today's Poem:"Conversation" Tom Sleigh

When David asks, "Where does the saying 'She still has
her marbles' come from?" I'd been talking about my ma,
who's 94, same as David, though David said,
"I'm 94 and four months, so she's still a child."
I say, "It's got to come from being a kid, wouldn't you think,
and playing marbles?" "Yes," he says, "it probably must.
But Tom, do kids even play marbles anymore?"
Earlier, he'd said, "I live in a place called Brook Haven,
but we all call it The Death Camp. There are some nice people
who live in The Death Camp, people I've known a long time
who have a sense of humor, or try to have one,
about their situation, but the problem is the horizon
is foreshortened, if you know what I mean . . ."
Then David says, "You know there's that poem about
the two shepherds who sing verses out of Virgil
and the moment one of them finishes, the other says,
'That's just fantastic, it's wonderful!' and the shepherds
seem like they love one another because the other one
starts singing different lines of Virgil and when
he finishes his friend says, 'That's just fantastic,
it's wonderful!' and of course, it's Virgil pulling
all the strings, the shepherds are Virgil acting like
shepherds who are quoting Virgil whom they love.
I saw Arthur's widow, Marie-Claire, to show her
a book in which Arthur's and my poems had been translated
into French and she was gracious and enthusiastic
as always, but then she asked me if I'd ever been
to visit her in this apartment where I'd been
to see them lots, so even though she wasn't sure
of exactly who I was, at least she knew enough to know
that I was somebody she was supposed to be fond of—
but by how she kept smiling at me, she was anxious
for us both to act like she knew me."
"So she sort of knew who
you were," I said. But David, who has no truck with
the pathos of old age even as he feels it, didn't answer.

Outside my window were seagulls coasting and being
buffeted above the whitecaps in a bright glare
that was hard to stare into. We were coming to the end
of what we were saying, and now obligatory emotions
which we nonetheless honored gave our saying
goodbye an artificial quality, a forced
heartiness of affection until David quoted
from a poem, not his, referring to the Sphinx's beard,
"It's in the cellar of the British Museum
where the Athenians lost their marbles,"
and then David said, "Much love," and we were
off the phone and I stored his number
in my Contacts and erased the two 617
numbers for the 857 number and wondered
what he'd say if he knew that someone had made
a virtual-reality app of Bergen-Belsen
and that the next step is to make it "more tailored
and personalized for visitors."
One other thing David said:
"All my new poems ask questions like, 'Who is this who
who is saying this and what, anyway, is the this?