Sherry O'Keefe

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Somewhere Close By We Hear Bongos

We talk of fallen water and Wrangler jeans, walking through prayer circles by accident. Wet-weather creeks, home-cut hair and trees stunted by salt winds. Now I’m by myself at the Farmer's Market, across from the public library, two red peppers in my hands, not wanting to buy just one.

Somewhere in a city I've never been, he's talking to me on his cell phone, sharing his shuttle driver’s impromptu tour of what is now long gone: He remembers the hot dog stand where Hoffa once ate—now it’s a bus stop for the Met Line. Over there between Big Del’s Pizza and (no, not the first Starbucks but the second Starbucks) is where Bobbie sang for his supper—next to the newsstand that’s no longer there.

Sebastian recalls where we left off—he names a new world for me: airbursts and shattercones. Imagine comets bearing water. Around the corner from his flat, the record shop blares its music. Sometimes we hear fractured Beethoven and tangled rap; sometimes, Charlie Parker. We know we have seconds before we hang up so we close with talk of jump-twice creeks and silver veins, but we don't speak of his wife.