Chivalry smiles at me in the rear-view mirror,
asks me to switch the channel to some oldies,
mumbles something about Putin and the news.
Sitting in the back seat, navy cashmere blazer,
plum silk poof in his breast pocket,
crisp starched white button down,
prides himself on doing his own ironing.
The last time I drove him, was a D.A.R. function,
said what they wanted to hear, he was magnificent.

There’s a long light at Broadway. A woman
with a mauve blanket draped over her straw-gray hair,
is struggling to get the small, black, plastic wheels
of a Walmart shopping cart full of her worldly
belongings up the high curb.
Chiv nonchalantly hops out, gets the woman
and her cart out of the gutter,
has some polite conversation, hands her a C-note –
Glen Ford buying karma from Apple Annie –
gets back in the car like nothing happened,
checks his pant crease with a slight smile.

If we’re early drive around the block,
or better yet stop at that bar on the corner.
I hand him my flask and ask him how he wanted
to be introduced tonight.
Just tell the lovely ladies of the Auxiliary,
that I’m here to speak to the reports of my demise,
which are being grossly inflated, and
warn them that I have a new rant
that deflates the idiocy of toxic masculinity
in all its latest cultlike forms.

Craig Kirchner is retired and living in Jacksonville, because that’s where his granddaughters are. He loves the aesthetics of writing, has a book of poetry, Roomful of Navels and has been nominated three times for Pushcart. He was recently published in Chiron Review, Main Street Rag, The Wise Owl, The Wilderness House, Sybil, and dozens of others. He houses 500 books in his office and about 400 poems on a laptop, these words help keep him straight. He is at Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/craigkiirchner.bsky.social

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'Downtown', by Craig Kirchner