“All Good Things” and “Atlantic Beach” (by A. James)

Albi James (pseudonym) was born in Nova Scotia, grew up in Windsor, Ontario, and now lives in Calgary, Alberta. He has been a labourer, musician, and teacher – not necessarily in that order. His poems have appeared in various journals, anthologies, and in a collection. He is also the author of His Own Misfortune, a work-in-progress.

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Artwork by Edward Supranowicz

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All Good Things

pretty, 22 or so –
on her chest, stars tattooed
in a new constellation

brown eyes starry too,
she puts bow to fiddle and draws honey –
her first D scale and she could make a fiddler
– sometimes you see that quick
and cheer

but doesn’t own one
what’s more, must run to the bank
for this week’s fee – next time I say

I search half a day
a moneyed address:
a teen girl bows some Bach
her brother on piano, a free concert –
she’ll give away the violin for two-fifty:
how ’bout two-hundred I say
my finances not all
that cherry-red Cadillac claims
and I’d like to explain:
a rich guy drove from California
but the AC gave out
so he bought a new Caddy on the spot,
the mechanic getting the old one
for twenty-five hundred
fixed it, more than, because I taught his daughter
Sold! for three grand: a leather-seated limo –
the point being,
it came cheap

next lesson
my student pays for just the first
and takes the violin
with its chestnut finish
and dark whiskey tone
which she’ll buy
once her cheque comes through

but next week an email: she’s sick

week after, another:
off to BC to help Mom

then silence-
despite a friendly email, and another
and a polite email
then a rant – which I delete

that winter
the alley sheer ice,
the cherry-red Cadillac spins
into a pole nose first
– hides its V-for-Victory face
in the garage till summer
when it goes for charity –
they crush’m all says the tow-truck driver

year later, out of the blue
email from her sister:
they got her inbox at last
and she owed me – and
a brother wants the fiddle
(a mountain car crash
just after that off-to-BC note –
she drifted across the line)
I’m sorry and two-hundred dollars I reply
because my finances

I’d like to add a thought –
say, the night sky has a new setting of stars
in that constellation inked on her skin
but i’d be lying,
they are just stars
piled in endless heaps like fill for endless graves –
hills and mountains of them
with starry rivers pouring
into overflowing oceans of stars –
concertos and symphonies of stars
star-laden rags and ragas, jigs and reels
shooting stars, falling stars
winking stars spinning
into lanes of blinking stars
– stars you wish on –
they’re free
they’re all we’ve got

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(Note: BC: British Columbia)

Atlantic Beach
(South Carolina)

this DINER in pulsing neon,
its wall-ads for Hot-dogs! Cold Beer!
and Hot Coffee! smacks of comics,
cops and robbers, baseball cards, Jim Crow

Spring Break starts tomorrow
it’ll be packed says Dixie, a fading Belle
next stool over, with a small boy

it’s the harmonica
brought me south I explain

oh! play something

I don’t have one on me I say
just stepped over from the hotel

you can’t be a real harmonica-player, then

Grandma, I’m done says the boy

you are not done, a cake is done:
you are finished says Dixie, a school-teacher

behind the counter, the boss – squat
and tough – calls orders
and cracks wise
– Dixie leans in:
he is not a nice man

enter young Mexicans, dressed-up
fresh from Arrivals – there’s a suitcase
a fiesta with servers erupts

I don’t like that says Dixie

what?

they should speak English –
this is America

my bill come, Dixie suggests I go
with them but I plead an early flight

oh that’s too bad
are you sure

her upcast eyes cry loneliness so deep
you could fall in and drown

the sidewalk I yield to laughing college kids
in baggy shorts, tank tops and flip-flops

neon light spews pale green and sick orange
onto shop-window souvenirs:
desiccated starfish, bleached sand dollars,
conch shells and plastic ships-in-bottles

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