Dark Star

Dark Star

Halley's Comet scuffed the night sky

a powder blur

the night Norman was born

 

“I came in with that comet,”

he used to joke

“I'll most likely leave with it too.”

I was named after him,

the first, the oldest,

the should- have- been son.

 

He taught me the horses,

the boxers, the card games.

I even picked the horse he won on.

 

Threw me The Racing Form

“Tell me what you like in the Derby”

I picked “Dark Star”, he went off at 26 to 1.

 

We stopped waiting for Norman

after a week went by. Feared he was

dead behind some tavern somewhere.

 

But the rent and grocery money

we  needed- all gone[ too.

And Dark Star won the Derby

 

I looked for him; went to Lincoln Downs.

Asked for him at Narragansett Park.

Same answer--"He's following the horses"

He sent mom a postcard,“My car failed

 on the bridge to Maine.I walked  like Moses

into the Promised land." She tore it up.

 

Oh! Yeah, Halley's Comet?

Back on time in 1986.

Norman left the earth in 1970.