Today's poem is by David Kirby

I've Got You
       

                                I'm turning into the parking lot of my doctor's office
                and listening to Richard Pryor tell an interviewer
that when they rehearsed the flying scenes
                                in that Superman movie, he and co-star Christopher Reeves

                                were suspended from wires in a studio with walls
                and a ceiling and mats on the floor, but for the actual shot,
they were taken outside and left dangling sixty feet above
                                the concrete on which crew members beetled about

                                and the director shouted instructions through a bullhorn,
                the horizon stretching toward a promising future
for everyone but him. I was terrified, says Pryor,
                                and just then my radio goes dead, which is fine

                                because it's time for me to hustle inside for my appointment
                anyway. In the waiting room, I'm taken aback:
everyone here is so old! Half of them are in wheelchairs,
                                and half of those are asleep or staring out of a frozen mask

                                of a face as caretakers fuss with their collars or flip through
                years-old issues of People and Golf Digest.
Am I old? It seems unlikely. Then again, why am I here?
                                The book I'm reading as I wait is about Paul's Boys,

                                the youth troupe from St. Paul's Cathedral
        that rivaled Shakespeare's company because, one,
the little fellows were all trained singers in a culture
                                particularly attuned to music; two, they were free

                                to perform satires because they weren't regulated
                by the censor the way the adults were; and three,
they were fun to watch, because what could be more
                                endearing than a bunch of actors four feet tall

                                running around playing kings and muscular heroes
                like Hercules. And then they too got old. No exceptions!
Each of us owes God a death, says Shakespeare,
                                no matter how sublime his or her artistry.

                                On June 27, 1964, musician Eric Dolphy was barely able
                to play at a Berlin jazz club and later that night
was taken to a hospital, where he lapsed into
                                a diabetic coma and died. "That really broke me up,"

                                remembers fellow musician Ted Curson.
                "When Eric got sick on that date, and him being black
and a jazz musician, they thought he was a junkie.
                                Eric didn't use any drugs. He was a diabetic—all they had

                                to do was take a blood test, and they would have found that out.
                So he died for nothing." Don't die for nothing. Or for no one:
Richard Pryor was terrified on that movie set,
                                and Christopher Reeves could see that, so Reeves says,

                                "Don't worry — I've got you," and that's when Pryor realized
                that Christopher Reeves thought he was Superman.
Who's got you? A lot of people would say God,
                                but what does that mean. When Zeus sees Europa,

                                he transforms himself into a bull and breaths out
                a crocus. Who could resist? Not Europa. She clambers
onto the bull's back and around the meadow they go,
                                and just when Europa is at her happiest, thinking

                                this is it, this is what I've always wanted, the bull
                lifts one hoof from the ground, then two, three,
all four, and begins to carry her skyward toward
                                nameless terror or bliss. Who's got you? Life isn't easy.

                                It ends. For everyone. Is someone there for you?
                How lucky you are. Who is it? At home by the fire,
when you look up, who do you see? Who sees you?
                                Who scratches your arm lazily as you both fall

                                asleep? Who remembers the time you two got lost
                in that strange city? What language were they speaking,
and how could you make them understand you?
                                Miracles happen every day, but they're not always miraculous.

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Copyright © 2023 David Kirby All rights reserved
from The Cincinnati Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission