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Poem of the Week
Encountering the world through poetry.
Last Update: 2009-04-21
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1. Fever
A 2 am fever roused my son,
his cries rousing me.
I held his sweating brow
against my chest, my wife
dipping the medicine into his mouth
as my waking form swayed,
our feverish love staying sleep
for the next hour.
A forgettable night, but for this poem,
A night he will never remember.
space
The present an echo of the past,
of the nights my mother, my father scooped me
up, sacrificing cherished sleep
to sooth me,
to sooth my fever,
something I do not remember
something they will never be thanked for
Their love burning
a fever is in the early morning.
4/21/2009 3. Late NightIn the late night,
in the shadows of dim stadium lights,
one kid strode up to another
and pummeled the hell out of him.
The kid’s friend watched
video phone rolling.
space
Out on this proving ground,
this young man let
that pent up primal nature out
besting the mammoth before him,
his beastial cry in our urban society,
his rite of passage
an undisturbing scene.
space
More disturbing his friend,
video phone in hand,
passively watching
it all go by.
4/14/2009 5. Fingerprints
After you attended Mass at San Lorenzo,
and while you leaned forward,
your eyes watching Florence’s Fiume Arno
flow quietly through the steam rising
from the cappuccino cupped
in your hands, I floated through
space
our Pennsylvania home today, traveling from
the kitchen
to the foyer
then up to our bedroom,
seeing you here.
space
If squad cars lurched into our driveway,
and home were the crime scene,
you, not me, would be the one convicted.
Your fingerprints are everywhere,
these rooms, on me,
and on our anticipated future.
4/8/2009 7. Maggie, How I Miss YouMaggie, How I Miss You
(On a Tombstone, Waterloo Village)
space
Embedded in the earth,
a weathered, worn stone
chiseled with these words
“Maggie, How I miss you.”
space
And all is said.
space
Out of the mind’s haze,
a stoop shouldered man
steps to a stop, at the foot
of a fresh mound of shoveled ground.
A young girl follows him.
space
“When is mommy coming home?”
His tears answer, the first rain
to work at weathering those words,
“Maggie, How I miss you.”
space
After the years of our blending,
after our hatchings have been tossed
from the nest to fly however they may,
One of us will be left to say,
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“How I miss you.”
4/1/2009 9. Seemed Like a Good IdeaIt seemed like a good idea at the time,
when on the fourth of July, I bought
California Flowers to celebrate
the freedom of youth.
That night, from the front seat of my friend’s Mustang,
I lit one, and threw it over the roof,
toward a group teens styling different,
leaning against their black cars.
The firework arched through a rolled down window,
landed at some girl’s feet and went off.
space
It seemed like a good idea at the time,
when at thirteen, I raced by my sister
on my mean green machine,
my bike edging hers,
proving my manliness.
A cattle truck pulled out onto the road,
scaring her, causing her to turn,
ending in tears, blood, and meshed metal.
space
It seemed like a good idea at the time,
when I scaled the outside of our stave silo
to prove how fearless I was,
my cousin standing far below.
I c... 3/25/2009 Page 1 of 6  59 Episodes
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