POEM: Re: Talk To Me Babe

Re: Talk To Me Babe

I was driving from Lenox to Albany
listening to a song called “Talk To Me Babe”
by Bob Snider. As the last chunks of ice
flew from the top of the van onto the highway,
I felt the metaphorical ice in my chest break up
and float off down my veins and arteries
or however that works, out into the universe.
I thought to tell you that you’re still my favorite.
That if I could choose anybody in the whole world,
I’d choose you. That when I think about getting older,
you’re the one I want to do that with. I thought to write
and say if you’re feeling the same way
maybe we could work things out somehow,
figure out a way to leave more room in the room
that we share. Soon I’ll probably have a job
and a decent apartment and if you ever need a place
to be reminded why the world is better with you in it,
well I’ll have a spot like at my place and you’d be
very much welcome to it. I didn’t write any of those things
directly for fear of disappointment or of finding out
that someone else had already made a space
on their couch for you. I’m not sure I’m strong enough yet
for that. So instead I write these things in poems,
doubting very much that anybody but Dave is reading them
and Dave has problems of his own to deal with.
But anyway the Bob Snider song is good and in fact
the whole album is good and if all that comes of this poem
is that Dave decides to listen to Bob Snider, then these words,
unlike others I tried to say, will not have been in vain.

/ / /

8 February 2022
Colonie NY