The Styrofoam coffee cup echoing
across the concrete like some haywire clock
invites me to trail its staggered blowing
down Kavanaugh. I follow for a block
and a half until it halts beneath some
blue SUV parked outside of Leo’s
gyro shop. Suddenly memory comes
sweeping back: My literary hero
Kurt Vonnegut strolling outside of Grand
Central Station in 1989.
How I decided to linger, then blend
in with the shadows as I trailed behind
perhaps thirty feet, matching his calm gait,
catching up when stoplights forced him to wait
at each corner of 42nd Street.
Cordovan loafers, brown slacks, tweed jacket,
right hand holding an umbrella he’d treat
like a walking cane, his steel-gray packet
of curly hair and thick mustache encased
a face serene as his pace. No social
critic this day. His eyes glowed, seemed erased
of any feeling except love for all
the great city displayed. At last I left
him outside the Main Library as he
rose past its silent lions to well-kept
volumes tracing our hope and doom. We’re free
thanks to words like his, urging us to seek
our own words. So he lived. He died last week.
Roger Armbrust
April 2007
