Produced by Dennis Camire

This week’s poem is by New Jersey transplant Jim Donnelly, who co-curates The Lowry’s Lodge Reading Series and who now resides in Westbrook.

Newark

By Jim Donnelly

there was something

in the poverty of that photo that touched her

something

that reared its way through the black and white print of a thick colored woman

dancing with a thin colored man “colored”

the word when the photo was made dancing – the two of them

on the street, in one of Newark’s wards

as if the blues band that was present had made them pause

from the coarse, battered cry of their living

or the truth that resides in cracked speech (so inadequate is sound when in a word’s employ)

yes, there was something in the manner of the slight black man

trim of waist, face

made of good carving

in how gently he seemed to handle her

the heavy woman

in the flowered housedress

in their mournful sweet two-step their “ain’t nobody’s business” of a dance

hope, like the trains in the distance, fleeting

just passin’ through

Dennis Camire can be reached at dcamire@cmcc.edu