poem

 Beginner's Luck

Some poems write themselves

With very little need for revision.

Others start as a sliver of half thought 

Or crumpled up idea inexplicably saved.

Days or weeks later all that’s left

Is the other half of a smooth

Sheet of crisp white paper.

The ones that fall into place,

Like snowflakes into a drift,

Are the ones everyone loves best

But I’m most proud

Of the ones I had to grind out

One tortured line at a time.

The one I’m working on now

Will take me the rest of my life.

I haven’t had to change 

A single line.

3/8/26

poem

 My Favorite Things

It begins with a phone call after midnight

Followed by a flurry of exchanged texts

Someone is in trouble and needs help.

Based on the information given it sounds

Like a lost cause but the ICU attending on

Site is young and quite concerned and has bypassed

The in-house surgical PA to convey the magnitude of her 

Disquietude directly to me via phone.

Years ago I would have argued, said something 

Dismissive or rude but I’m awake now

And consciously aware of how much my back aches

And I know I won't be able to go back to sleep

So I haul my ass out of bed and drive into the hospital.

The minute I see the poor old lady tubed and lined 

In the unit I know we have lost our window, probably days ago.

Hello Bessie, I say. Hello Mildred. Hello Cynthia.

No one is in the room. I call the number for the sister

Listed in the chart and she answers on the first ring.

Are you the one who’s going to save her?

Honestly, I don’t know 

I unleash a fusillade of cliches—

I’ll do my best.

It’s her only chance

Rock and a hard place 

I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news…

To fill the silence that ensues

I try a different track

I ask her to tell me her sister’s 

Favorite thing in the world.

Her most favorite thing in the whole world, I repeat.

And she tells me, after a pause, and that’s all 

I can think about the rest of the day

And every now and then, ever after. 

We finish the surgery by 7AM and hope for the best

But the light of dawn unmasks monsters

Lurking in the near shadows of the almost past 

And by noon the blunt force of futility arrives

As the blinds are drawn and the monitors turned off.

During dinner, I get a text she has passed

3/8/26

poem

 Descendants

My son is on to me

Laughs when I’m trying to be serious

Stone faces me when I’m legit funny

I only want the best for him

But he thinks I’m plotting his demise

Tell you what, do it your way

I say, and he doesn’t even do that

He finds some other way

To get where he thinks he’s going

A route I’m sure he’ll someday

Secretly rue

We’ve all been there
But never let anyone know!

Repeat your lines like a mantra

Show them all your receipts

Fake it until you feel it

You’ll begin to believe it yourself

When asked to defend your own life

The best you can do is point 

To one of your descendants— the brilliant,

Kind-hearted lad who won't arrive

For another 214 years.

Be patient 

You just have to wait for him.

No, I don’t have an answer,

Is the best I can say when 

He draws his own blanks

To the big questions he finally

Gets around to asking.

Try to imagine it gets better, I say.

When I see the horror 

Stitched to his face 

I have a sudden desire to laugh

But I’m his dad now

And all I can do is hold him tight

And let him sort of angry cry 

Which is sometimes the best compromise

Between telling him the truth

And filling his heads with lies

3/8/26

poem

 Group Chat

Our friend group goes back nearly 30 years but we rarely see each other. We live in different cities now and our kids are all growing up. Group chat is the last thing we have left. At one time we were really good friends in the conventional sense but this is something different and no less essential. Otherwise we’d never stay in touch. Usually it’s banter about sports, sometimes current events, sometimes pop culture. Pictures of kids and family milestones. Politics is discouraged. The weirdo will occasionally post late night poems. Another guy always posts his gambling ticket stubs when he wins . But there’s one guy going through some changes. Got divorced. Estranged from his family. Younger girlfriend, the love of his life, just dumped his ass. Bankrupt. Has cancer. Found out he’s going to croak. Every night he tries to stir the thread to life. I mean, every single night. We’re his friends and all, but we’re busy with our lives. There’s only so much you can do for friends who only exist on a small digital screen. One night he texted “anyone want to talk about global warming and its implications for Florida real estate?” And you know what? Not really. Not one person on this thread wants to get into that right now. So nobody says anything and it’s that horrible feeling where you’ve sent a shout into the ether expecting an echo and nothing comes back. So the rest of us got together and decided we would take turns responding to his attempts at connection. The good thing is, there’s 10 of us in the group chat so it’s only three or four times a month. It’s like being on call. The last time I was on duty he wanted to talk about the effects of heavy snow on the underlying foliage, in particular that 24-48 hour period right after it all melts, you know, the way everything is flattened, sort of like the way they depict flowers in cartoons after an 800 lb anvil falls on them. He wasn’t just trying to be obtuse. By now you can tell when he’s trying to push things in a metaphysical direction. Subsequent digressions can go on for hours.  But I kept him at arms length. Yes, the dead leaves from fall look like a cobblestone street. Yes, the scraps of paper trash could be the debris left over from the cut out dolls you used to make for your daughter.  And yes, the dog shit. People are such assholes and the grass is so flat, almost supplicant, as if it had been woven into a mat.You almost want to kneel on it and beg for forgiveness.  I reassured him that it doesn’t stay like this forever. The shit eventually gets picked up and the grass rises again. So much so, you’ll have to cut it again in the spring. He seemed to ponder this awhile and the resultant pause in our exchange gave me an opportunity to tell him I had to brush my teeth and get ready for bed and he responded with a thumb's up emoji. I put the phone down with a sense of heightened self-regard. Once again, I had done my job. Another few hours and I could pass the baton. Next man up. When he dies, we’re probably going to have to go back to talking about sports again. We all expect the same treatment. One by one. Until there’s only one man left.

3/8/26