I watched the froth go down and the yellow liquid rise to meet it. I twisted the glass around and it tipped over and spilled on his arthritic knee. I looked to the side and didn’t apologize. His beautiful bony fingers flicked off the foam in separate particles as if it was incidental lint he had finally noticed.
The decision is yours now.
He rubbed the liquid into his pant leg. I sighed. Either decision I make will kill something.
And so, you want to hang in this ether land forever?
Yes.
And if I pulled your hair?
And if I scalded your mouth?
And if I made a teepee of birch billets with you in the centre?
Look at me.
No.
He went away.
Next night the phone rang.
I’ll meet you at Glacier and First Point. You must be exact.
I’ll be there for three evenings.
For three nights I wore myself ragged but couldn’t find where.
Friday evening the doorbell rang. He handed me two books by Aksel Sandemose. I put my fingers exactly where his warm fingerprints still lingered on the top book and closed the door. I read and waited.
(There was a tidal wave and a woman went from window to window with a candle in her hand as her house floated out the bay. They rescued her in St. Lawrence.)
When you are ready, if ever, light your own candle.
Two years later, my hand shook as I held the match. His hair had greyed around the temples and he crippled shyly.
Five years later, two babies look hauntingly like him. He is chopping wood in the backyard. He stops.
Look at me. I fooled you years ago. Glacier is in Iceland and I tore out all the pages where it was written in that book. Do you regret that we called the babies Abstract and Zero? Come feel Aunt Hilda and Didymus under my fingernails.
His gentle laugh ripped the night sky, and I got pregnant again.
Copyright ©:
Agnes Walsh
A few random poems:
- Surreal landscapes by Sunil Sharma
- The Wind Speaks poem – Alfred Austin
- Behavior. by Walt Whitman
- Book Fifth-Books by William Wordsworth
- At First. To Charlotte Cushman. by Sidney Lanier
- Michael Angelo In Reply To The Passage Upon His Staute Of Sleeping Night by William Wordsworth
- Lamp Of Love by Rabindranath Tagore
- A River Flows Underground by Satish Verma
- Dreaming of Li Po by Tu Fu
- A kiss to the ground by Victoria Rose
- A Song To Eleonora Duse In “Francesca da Rimini ” by Sara Teasdale
- At The Gate Of A Hospital by Shahida Latif
- His Pilgrimage by Sir Walter Raleigh
- A Song of an Autumn Night. by Wang Wei
- Какой чудесный, маленький комочек
External links
Bat’s Poetry Page – more poetry by Fledermaus
Talking Writing Monster’s Page –
Batty Writing – the bat’s idle chatter, thoughts, ideas and observations, all original, all fresh
Poems in English
- Number 1 by Raj Arumugam
- nonsense verse by Raj Arumugam
- no ambition for eternity by Raj Arumugam
- Nature’s song for the children by Raj Arumugam
- Nasrudin’s donkey eats poetry by Raj Arumugam
- Mummy, mummy who invented school? by Raj Arumugam
- Mum and children in the street by Raj Arumugam
- Mr Anonymous, a life by Raj Arumugam
- Moon poems by Raj Arumugam
- Moon, I hear you are moving away by Raj Arumugam
- minding love by Raj Arumugam
- message from the sun by Raj Arumugam
- may each find the peace within by Raj Arumugam
- M for Man, Money and Moon by Raj Arumugam
- lovers in nature by Raj Arumugam
- love growing by Raj Arumugam
- love by Raj Arumugam
- little teddy bear lost by Raj Arumugam
- little Sara’s sleep by Raj Arumugam
- life on the escalator by Raj Arumugam
More external links (open in a new tab):
Doska or the Board – write anything
Search engines:
Yandex – the best search engine for searches in Russian (and the best overall image search engine, in any language, anywhere)
Qwant – the best search engine for searches in French, German as well as Romance and Germanic languages.
Ecosia – a search engine that supposedly… plants trees
Duckduckgo – the real alternative and a search engine that actually works. Without much censorship or partisan politics.
Yahoo– yes, it’s still around, amazingly, miraculously, incredibly, but now it seems to be powered by Bing.
Parallel Translations of Poetry
The Poetry Repository – an online library of poems, poetry, verse and poetic works
