My husband's poetry

Category: Family

  • June sweat

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    cfblack
    in , ,

    By the mailbox, with a little sweat, a mattock and shovel, my grandson and I put three steps in the hillside. Why it took four years to start a project that took four hours I don’t know. I look around to see what project to start next and tell myself there is no rush, because…

  • On hearing of my uncle’s death

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    by

    cfblack
    in , ,

    footprints lead through dust in yard angel print arch trail ends hawk in dead pine ascend unexpectedly upward 8-23-20

  • old photo

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    by

    cfblack
    in , , ,

    Tonight, I saw a picture of the last time we sat and talked We did not know it was our last time and that soon I’d race through the night across six states to listen to last breaths If we knew it was our last time would you have consented to a hug _____ We…

  • a nickel a scoop

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    by

    cfblack
    in , ,

    Hot summer on sidewalk a lost dime no one saw you pick it up Snuck bike from garage two miles to Frozen Custard a nickel a scoop You lean forward lick fast so it doesn’t drip on shirt and give you away 8-22-20

  • Cherry thief

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    cfblack
    in , ,

    hot day supper’s hours away no one in the kitchen jar of Maraschino cherries sits alone in Frigidaire pop two in your mouth, flee out back door _____ return for supper angry Maraschino cherry mom questions pass blame suggest a sibling back hand to face “That’s for my cherries’ then another “That’s for lying” _____…

  • Dreaming with migraine headaches

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    by

    cfblack
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    waking in a time loop of childhood terrors reading in front of class with a speech impediment holding your arm to control a tic trying not to hum or have outbursts in class scrapping in the hall because someone made fun paddlings in the office whippings when you got home suicidal thoughts you fought to…

  • Kissing country girls

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    cfblack
    in , , ,

    She said, “You have to leave!” I asked, “Why?” She replied, “No one comes out this far in the country” I smiled and said, “I do.” She said, “That dust cloud on the horizon is Daddy’s truck.” I got in my car and left 8-10-20

  • an anniversary meditation

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    cfblack
    in , , , ,

    dust motes shimmer through trees on sunbeams I sip coffee and read Hibakusha stories trees shake from an earthquake in the mountains I haven’t heard damage reports, but it will be mild _____ on the anniversary of Nagasaki I reflect 70,000 vaporized in a rush for peace children, mothers, fathers a Shinto shrine and Catholic…

  • One-winged bird

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    cfblack
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    On a wall of my mother’s parents’ living room hung her siblings all in a row and a photo of Grandpa’s family. It took me 68 years to ask where was grandma’s family. A simple answer, a dark secret or just the misogyny of an old German family. I’ll never know. The whys of this…

  • Rain

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    by

    cfblack
    in , ,

    Checking in with a friend a single mom. a public school teacher. She’s worried about her daughter and her job; afraid that one of them could end up sick in this pandemic. She wants to quarantine at home and can’t. She needs her job and they need each other. I listen to her as rain…