Sanders, Mark

Spencer, Robert L.

English

SWOSU Digital Commons (Southwestern Oklahoma State University)

Volume 12Issue 4 Summer Article 197-15-1993The Creighton Pool Hall / The CorridorMark SandersRobert L. SpencerFollow this and additional works at: https://dc.swosu.edu/westviewThis Poetry is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals atSWOSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Westviewby an authorized administrator of SWOSU Digital Commons. For moreinformation, please contact phillip.fitzsimmons@swosu.edu.Recommended CitationSanders, Mark and Spencer, Robert L. (1993) "The Creighton Pool Hall / The Corridor," Westview: Vol. 12 : Iss. 4 , Article 19.Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/westview/vol12/iss4/19The Creighton Pool HallThe smoke here is friend. The break of the rack quiet conversation. Along the brown-gray walls, where wood benches sit in the haze, cue sticks stand their silent guard. Today no one speaks, not the old farmers with sun burned dull on their faces, nor the smart-mouthed kids who fool with snooker, smoky silence held in their lungs. Whatever is cool works hard to stay that way. The squat Coke machine sweats in its sun-dusted corner. A pin-up selling cement ashens with age, her wax-smooth body scarred where someone put out his cigarette.A box fan shivers at the alley door, an old dog noses out a space of shadow.■I wake in an exquisite Old-Pans mansard-roofed, colossus hotel. Gold-gilded window frames, purple awnings. The porter folds back the cage door, the elevator opening to the Sunday morning lobby.Three American girls with the exchange program, their dark-haired French friend, his brother introduce themselves, and coax me to follow The girls want the brothers to talk, so I am silent as we spiral down a stone corridor beneath the streetThe corridor ends at a huge oaken door that opens to a basement room and the boys' Jewish grandmother.There is a fire blazing in a stone fireplace, a great library of oversized books, framed photos, signed, of opera stars, wine glasses on a mahogany table; a music box turns a ballerinaThe grandmother commands the girls to laugh, the men to speak elegantly This meeting, which she has arranged, is an opera stage. A curtain of shadow hangs over her face Any moment she will sing to avert tragedy.■bY  mArK sAn D eRsSUMMER 1993 23The CorridorBy Ro b e r t  L.sP eN cEr

The Creighton Pool Hall / The Corridor

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The Creighton Pool Hall / The Corridor

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