At the Red Lobster in Duluth, MN

cartoon by Arsenio Orteza

He left behind the frozen landscape
and empty mines of his Midwestern home
to head east, for New York
where he heard it was all happening.
At every stop along the way to the Port Authority
he jumped out to grab a smoke
and check on the heavy battered Gibson
riding in the luggage compartment
beside his big suitcase. In between
he took in the fields and crossroads
of the vast country.

When he landed in the city
he walked happily down Eighth Avenue
through smells of pickles and pizza
to locate himself in a railroad flat
on the sixth floor of a walkup
where he peed on the rats
in the bathroom in the hall.
Days he made the rounds
of the folk clubs in the Village
singing for owners in his rough voice
the songs he had written on the backs
of invoices from his father’s store.
Nights when he wasn’t singing somewhere
he spent soaking in the tub
in his kitchen and dreaming of the future.

But the gigs got shorter and came less often
and he started getting to parties
after the important people had left.
The record company stopped returning his calls
and one day a club owner told him, “Look,
I’ve seen it all, and you just don’t have it,”
just as his money ran out
and rather than ask his father for more
he took the A train back uptown
but not before leaving his guitar at the Salvation Army
on Spring Street at the corner of Lafayette
and twisting his harmonica rig
into the shape of the state of Minnesota
and dropping it in a trash holder on the street.
He jumped on a Greyhound back to the north country
where he learned how to cook
or at least defrost and reheat fish
at the Red Lobster in Duluth.

He gave up listening to music at all
though occasionally lyrics formed
unbidden in his head
while he stood over the big stove
turning flounders that smelled of butter.
He hummed these secret tunes to himself
growing old behind the cries of the servers
clamoring for their orders.

Donald Levin teaches English and chairs the English and Modern Language Department at Marygrove College in Detroit, Michigan. He is the author of two poetry books, New Year’s Tangerine (Pudding House, 2007), and In Praise of Old Photographs (Little Poem Press, 2005); a novel, The House of Grins (Sewickley Press, 1992); and poetry and fiction in numerous print and electronic journals. Samples of his guitar work are on YouTube at RivrRidr902’s channel.