During tests in the dusty little town
the history teacher stood at a window,
absorbed in the trees, hands in pockets,
talking to himself, silently guffawing,
body shaking merrily, head thrown back
The local cognoscenti knowing him only
from the dull shack off Main Street
rumored he retold himself the dirty jokes
he regaled to boozers on other bar stools
The girl in the first row by the windows
had no theory at that time except to wonder
if he was a lonely man keeping his own company,
a lonely man with a sense of ribald humor
a bit too bawdy and a tad rare there
Out of college, married and divorced, that girl,
an English teacher in an large inner city school,
debated with herself if his self laughter might
instead have arisen from a rare understanding
of irony, its pleasures and downsides
When she encountered distinguished bums
on busy sidewalks chuckling, gesturing,
snorting at the nuances of puns and double entendres,
she felt an impulse to shout, “Mister Kilgore!”
She tried that once, only to discover the gentleman she stopped
knew nothing about the Crimean War, the Holy Roman Empire,
European imperialism in Africa, Asia and the Middle East
He only knew a bit about God and Napoleon
and kindly asked if she could find a coupla’ coins
for a cuppa coffee and a piece of pie