So Rare

by Arthur McMaster

Old Uncle Gordon’s train is still up there, in the attic,
laid out not far from Mother’s good china,
this one–of–a–kind collectable:
six distinctive pieces reposed in a small, cardboard box,
trussed up with time, and tape,
and not a little melancholy, its parts
wrapped tight in the Wilkes Barre Times Leader.

June 12, 1957: Jimmy Dorsey, Dead, we find.
Lung cancer. His clarinet silent. That talent stilled.
For years Gordon had kept that set on his living room mantle.
It connected him with something, he would say.
A let me tell you about kind of thing.

They liked to entertain. He and Edie. Music, cocktails . . .
Then one day he wrapped it up. Put it away.
Edie gave it to me when he died. They had no children.
So, there was that.
One of those, Would you like to have this? kind of thing.
Sure, I agreed. Why not?

My wife tells me that train has seen better days,
but then who or what hasn’t? — this never again combo —
this winsome black locomotive, once full of whiskey:
four smoky, amber shot glasses opining in the coal car
Maybe meant to resemble, what? —
the engineer? His brakeman? The switchman?
The Negro porter selling Chesterfields? Or young Gordon —
the part–time, teen–aged telegrapher who so loved Jimmy Dorsey?