The Quotable Delmore Schwartz

The Story of Jean

 

 

 

Big Pimpin

 

 

 

We pick up his coat from a Korean drycleaner who is well-known for menacing anyone who’s come on hard times with a broom.

Down the block, he sheds the plastic, and
drapes the coat across an imaginary puddle in our path.

The crowd parts;
extending a wrinkled hand,
he awaits my arrival on the other side.

“After you, m'lady,” he says,
“Know that what I can't give to you in love,
I plan on making up to you in grand financial gestures.”

Only two decades around the sun,

and I'm already hardened.

His daughter says she sees only madness in his wild spending,

while I see the dreams of which rappers often rhyme.

 

©Fiona Helmsley