Poetry by Peter Cashorali

Gerry Dincher CC



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The Old Shop


When I went back to the shop

That had been his before he died

And now was owned by someone else

Who worked behind the desk that he’d

Had carpenters make decades back,

In the chair where he had sat,

And in their lap, wrapped in towel,

Held and groomed a yellow nape

While sharing gossip on the phone,

And as I walked in looked at me

With a smile I knew before,

That same glance that shrewdly judged

If I was there to buy a bird

Or waste part of his afternoon

I thought how fully we unpack

When we travel out of life,

Leaving furniture and work,

Smile and gaze and attitude,

How we sit and what we think

For someone else to find and be

Until they leave it all and go,

And I wondered suddenly

Who had previously been me,

Used these gestures, known these thoughts,

Heirlooms handed down through time,

And before them, and before them,

Picked up and used and left behind

For the general human store

And for a minute I was there

With who was gone, in his no-more,

Traveling lightly, freed from all

That had made us travelers
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And all there was, was traveling.





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Space Travel


After every friend had died

I moved out from the building where

I’d known them all, to a new place

Up in the hills, a single life.

Days were pretty full in terms

Of occupation, though you’d think

It would be just the opposite--

Empty hours, empty life.

No. Crowded sadness all the time,

With no way to take a break.

One morning opening the blinds

I saw three stars shine side by side,

Recalled I’d always meant to learn

Something of the constellations

So bought a book about the stars.

That night I climbed four flights up

And came out on the roof. The sky

Was dim and dull, not as deep

As I’d always thought it was

And the stars were nothing much,

Crumbs of light dropped here and there.

But I saw the three I’d seen

And from there traced Orion out,

A mildly pleasing figure

A little like an hourglass.

As I had nothing else to do

I came out next night as well,

Brought a notebook so I could

Chart Orion for myself.

That was pleasant, to have him there

On the page and in the sky.

Later I wrote in the names

Of the stars that made him up--

Betelgeuse and Bellatrix,

Rigel in his lower corner.

And so, why not? Every night

I went out among the stars

Though couldn’t travel far at first.

Somehow that’s what I liked best,

Knowing they could not be reached

But going towards them anyway.

I was glad they all had names

That I could memorize and say--

Sirius and Procyon,

Deneb and Albireo--

Each star by itself, in silence,

But included in a picture,

A swan, a large and lesser dog,

Eagle carrying a boy.

I loved the way their stories had

Nothing to do with me, or grief

Or anyone I knew who’d died

Though when I charted Gemini

Whose twin stars stood beside the door

Of a longhouse I thought it would

Make a good safekeeping place.

What a joy to leave the earth

And simply go out there among

Giant people made of space

In stories that went on forever.

 I loved the way they were alive

But also places I could be,

Perseus, the Pleiades,

The Hyades and Pegasus.

I bought a telescope and saw

Orion was made out of scenes

I didn’t have to understand

But watched astonished all night long.

The Praecepe in Cancer was

A hallway thronged with galaxies

And hidden back in Leo’s flanks

There was an empty room in which

Anyone could come and sit.

The constellations in their mild

And diamond light were graciously

Uninterested in human life,

Indifferent. They didn’t want

To know why everyone I loved

And took care of died at last,

Why I was always somewhere else

So that each one died alone.

They didn’t care, and let me roam

Deep as I wanted into vast

And mildly glowing space where I

Could be relieved of mattering,

Be witness to their stories which

Continued whether seen or not.

Lepus fled and Lyra flew,

Cassiopeia changed her clothes,

His two Dogs brought Orion down

But each night he was up again.

Each of them was everything.

Does that make sense? Expanding space

Was what they were between their stars

Where I ran out while they went on

To ends or else to endlessness

But either way too much to see,

To hold in mind, and so instead

They carried me. I got to rest,

For months and months, and be no one.

Meanwhile somewhere down below,

The ground slowly dissolved the dead

Turning them into the ground.

Perhaps this increased gravity,

And let it reassert its claim?

What I knew was that I’d learned

The constellations and their stars

And so returned to daytime life

Where, middle aged, I was a guy

Who’d been knocked down by stacked-up loss,

Now had to get upright again,

Find a road to what came next

And plod along it step by step

As we all do, who walk the earth.

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Peter is a queer psychotherapist, previously working in community mental health and HIV/AIDS, now in private practice in Portland and Los Angeles. He is the author of two books, Gay Fairy Tales (HarperSanFranciso 1995) and Gay Folk and Fairy Tales (Faber and Faber, 1997). Recent work appears or is upcoming in Adelaide, Kestrel, Third Wednesday Quarterly, Syncroniciti, 1870 Journal and the Writers Study anthology.  He has lived through addiction, multiple bereavements and the transitions from youth to midlife and midlife to old age and believes you can too.