Tags
American Poets, Bloodaxe Books, Grief, Handbag, Matthew Dickman, Norton, Ruth Fainlight, The New Yorker, The Poetry Archive, Wonderland
Photo by Tim Moore
GRIEF
When grief comes to you as a purple gorilla
you must count yourself lucky.
You must offer her what’s left
of your dinner, the book you were trying to finish
you must put aside,
and make her a place to sit at the foot of your bed,
her eyes moving from the clock
to the television and back again.
I am not afraid. She has been here before
and now I can recognize her gait
as she approaches the house.
Some nights, when I know she’s coming,
I unlock the door, lie down on my back,
and count her steps
from the street to the porch.
Tonight she brings a pencil and a ream of paper,
tells me to write down…
latest collection: Wonderland (Norton)
HANDBAG
My mother’s old leather handbag,
crowded with letters she carried
all through the war. The smell
of my mother’s handbag: mints
and liptsick and Coty powder.
The look of those letters, softened…
latest collection: New & Collected Poems (Bloodaxe)
Bonespark~ 