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MEMORY, CONTEMPLATION, RETROSPECTION, AND DEATH ANGELA CONSOLO MANKIEWICZ Sestina for Solo Nights Only at street corners did he take her hand, with fatherly duty, to secure safe crossings; else, his stayed at his side or in a pocket as they walked some blocks to the movies, she as quiet as he was, as closed as he’d taught her to be, this summer night; his few hours off from the deli, Sunday night, after a morning opening ledgers with a hand unaccustomed to posting bills or closing the door to a neighbor knowing he’d be there, crossing off unpayables; knowing the need for milk moved him with or without any change in your pocket. He’d smoked half the pack of Kents in his shirt pocket by 1, when his 8-year-old, hopeful for night’s shadows, opened the deli’s door, her movements toward him heard but unacknowledged until her hand touched the ledger and she said “Dinner, Daddy. I crossed myself.” He nodded. She crossed herself back home. He closed the ledger, slid it under the counter, and closing up, picked the firmest day-old loaf for home, pocketed an extra pack of Kents for later, and crossed his child’s empty street to his wife’s dinner and night, when after a nap and the paper, he would hand the ads to his wife to tempt her to a movie, however unlikely, he knew, his smile might match a movie hero’s: too earnest perhaps, too hopeful, too close to confide illusions to: a trusting hand might betray, with an unwitting twinge, a pocketful of fantasies meant to freeze into solo nights; so, the child, again, would partner his crossings to a new western, comedy, grand drama, crossings the child cared nothing about, just the movies where she could pretend, solo, in the night, that her father wanted her there in the closed world beside him where candy money flowed from his pocket when asked, a silent dollar into a whispering hand. They take the subway home, across from the movie; the drowsy child reaches for his hand and finds his pocket unclosed and simpler to hold onto this summer night. ...

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