7933. BENSON

BENSON

I walked to Benson with a broken

arch, squalling Cracker Jacks from

out a broken box. My toy was a tiny

crutch, the kind I somehow remember 

getting as a kid from a March of Dimes

donation. It helped, but then it didn't.

I remembered a Catherine Smith. We

used to sit and have coffee together,

just a now and then type thing. Then

she disappeared in a big disappointment,

and all that was over and gone. Now, I

sometimes sit there too, but with my 

dog in tow. I feel she enjoys it more

than do I. Mornings can be like that;

long, long, and dry. Here comes that

cable-knit sweater guy. He claims to 

be a famous war photographer, and he

probably was, once. As was his father

before him. Names in a book, with

Cartier-Bresson. Oliver Morris, the 

saying goes. I sat with him some too.

He smoked these endless self-rolled

cigarettes, with long ashes that

never fell off.