The Radish, and: Ghost

Abstract

The Radish, and: Ghost Paul Martin (bio) The Radish Just the two of us and a gray old guybehind the bar in the country hotelmy brother and I found after swimmingthat afternoon in a quarry.No television, no music from the jukebox,we sat in the quiet of polished wood,sunlit silver keys hanging from a chain,a faded plastic rose beside the brass cash register.So many years later, my brother gone,the hotel razed to a weed-overgrown space,I tell you, as we pass, about the summer daywe stopped here for a cold beer,how, as the three of us drank in the stillness,the humblest things were liftedinto the light, how I felt such closenesstoward my brother and the old manslicing an icicle radishhe took from the cooler, salting it,and offering, as a gift,the crisp white rounds on a plate. [End Page 87] Ghost Especially when I wake earlyon a spring morning and drive the back roadsto Baltimore, my pale, lost brother appearsin the passenger seat, staringat the perfectly kept Amish farms,the huge draft horses pulling a plow. One word aloud from me would hurryhis leaving, so we drive in silencepast the remembered villages and river. At what moment he slips awayor for what reason, I don't know,only how longinglyhe stares at the green fields,the dirt lanes leading to white houses,the lines of freshly washed clothes. [End Page 88] Paul Martin Paul Martin has published poems in Boulevard, Commonweal, New Letters, Poet Lore, River Styx, Southern Poetry Review, and others. His first book, Closing Distances, was published by the Backwaters Press. A recent chapbook, Rooms of the Living, was cowinner of the Autumn House Press Chapbook Prize, and another, Floating on the Lehigh, won the Grayson Books Chapbook Prize. Copyright © 2015 University of Nebraska Press