WEBVTT

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"Atonement, for
Sean Thomas Doherty"

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Dear Sean, this morning at 8:30
on a crowded uptown 4 train

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stuck in a tunnel because of
a sick passenger up ahead,

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a woman gets interested
in the cover of your book

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and asks, what are you reading.

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I say poetry.

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She says, read me one.

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And other passengers
look at her funny.

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This done-up corporate-type
Black woman who wants a poem

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on a crowded train
on her way to work.

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I'm not sure what to do, Sean.

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I don't want to disturb
the other passengers.

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But then I think,
these motherfuckers

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are fine when crackheads sing
songs and beg them for change.

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I'm just reading a poem to
a woman across the crowd.

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So I start with "Your
Voice after Desnos."

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And I get to the end,
and she says, that's it?

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I say, yeah.

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She says, read me another.

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And the rest of the train is
tight uncomfortable, Sean.

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There are a couple smiles,
some white woman looking at her

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and frowning, a couple
awkward away-glances.

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But now there are also a couple
of folks taking out their iPod

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buds to check out the commotion.

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So I think we have a good long
stretch on a slow-ass uptown 4

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train between 42nd and 125th,
so I read "The Dark Soul

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of the Accordion."

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I start slow.

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Your first line is
breathtaking, Sean.

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"My grandfather does not
sleep among the roots."

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And immediately,
everybody is hooked.

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Everyone is in, the tattooed
man whose name I imagine

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to be Gus, the
elderly Filipino man

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in the neat threadbare
suits and dirty shoes,

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the Catholic schoolgirl
who's folded down

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the band of her skirt waist so
it can ride up over her thighs,

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and this Black woman
with a corporate suit

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and satchel and muted red nail
polish and immaculate hair.

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All of them are in, Sean.

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And she's smiling like
she won the lottery.

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And I'm reading your
poem on the 4 train

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like it's mine because
I've already read it aloud

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to myself three times
over the past two days,

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and the train
impossibly crowded.

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But I'm holding on to the
center pole and dancing.

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My friend Rupa once told
me I was kinetic, Sean,

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that I couldn't talk,
let alone read a poem,

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without the words pushing
my most fervent prayers away

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from my rib cage,
without looking like I

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was about to get up and run.

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And your poem is one I
wish I could have written.

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So I'm reading it,
almost shouting now.

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I've got me some room
around the center pool,

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and I'm digging into the words,
those taut lines like trenches.

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My grandfather's eyes are rain
across countless countries,

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you see.

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Sean, the train knows.

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It's picking up speed and
starting to rumble past 59th.

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And the train is more silent
than every New Yorker's

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quiet memories of bodies
flinging themselves

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like so many Icaruses from the
center of that towering heat.

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All are unspoken
fear, except for me,

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open and praying-chanting
your poem now.

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The orchestra of the accordion's
breath is my most verdant lung.

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I'm bobbing, weaving,
me, your poem,

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and 200 New Yorkers stuck in
rush hour traffic on the Uptown

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4.

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It is the week between Rosh
Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

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It is early fall.

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I'm never up this early
in the morning, Sean,

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but I'm doing a class visit
up at Fordham University.

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And I don't do these
early mornings,

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but I'm glad to be up and
busy, Sean, because it's work

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and I am heartbroken.

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I hurt my girl, Sean.

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I hurt her bad.

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And I just want to not
know how flawed I am

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every second of every moment.

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So I'm glad Sarah has
offered me this visit.

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Sarah once recited, drunk out
of her gourd, Psalm 100 to me

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and 10 others in a
bar over the jukebox,

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which I imagine
was playing Prince,

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but it could have been anything.

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And who knows if this has
anything to do with this ride.

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I'm reading your poem
past 86, past 96, me,

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the train, your
grandfather's accordion,

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a single kinetic organism.

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And I hurt my girl, and
she's never coming back.

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And I'm looking for
any kind of redemption.

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I can find because I
don't fully believe today

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that I'm a good man.

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And it's almost Kol Nidre.

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And in your poem, you
ask your grandfather,

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do you still consider
yourself a Jew?

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And according to you, he
doesn't even hesitate.

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He's on his deathbed.

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He's thought about this
and he says, what is a Jew?

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If a Jew is someone who
follows the Torah, no.

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But is that what makes a Jew?

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And if so, what good for others?

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What walls.

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And it's 125th Street,
and there is applause,

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and I almost forget to get off.

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I'm sweating, and the corporate
Black woman is already gone.

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And a couple of folks nod.

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And one dude says, that
was a pretty good way

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to spend a morning ride.

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And I get off.

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And, of course, Sean,
here's the kicker.

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None of this really happened.

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But it could, Sean.

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It could.

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If I can see my way clear to
read to a train full of people

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your poem on Kol Nidre.

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I might be in the clear.

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But, of course, that's
not exactly true either.

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A man can chase his own
shadow for a long, long time

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before he knows anything.

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Your grandfather knew this.

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In the end, he followed his
mother's voice out of here.

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What irony, what poetry, Sean.

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Your papa, a poet, the
breath of an accordion,

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a socialist jester
on his deathbed.

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He's trying to free
me on the 4 Train.

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It's crowded.

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And I'm reading silently but
breathing like I'm running.

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I'm with you and your papa.

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And I realize for a
while, my whole body

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is bending and nodding
from the waist.

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The two schoolgirls are
looking at me funny.

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Kinetic.

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For a moment, Sean, it
feels like I'm davening.

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[APPLAUSE]

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