in his cab, the stars were outand danced on the windshield, Stevens wrote,in his poem about my father.
They danced like skaters on the slick glassand in their reel and tinselling, he sawthe whole of life as a taxi ride through Philadelphia.
Not reading poetry, not recognizing his passenger,those were the years he might have picked up Yeats,Eliot, even Pound, who grew up in Wyncote,
but the only fare he knew on sight was John Carradine,who he insisted was Italianbecause his last name ended in a vowel.
If you did not look too close, Pop said,stars looked better in the rear view.So did he. In the poem about him
he wonders when his life will come to something,if it’s all been worth it. The wife,the three boys, that one huge…
