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:
- Владимир Маяковский – Новые силы в III Интернационале!.. (РОСТА №891)
- Владимир Высоцкий – Мы просто куклы
- Нина Воронель – Попытка отчаяния
- Олег Бундур – Если вы придёте в лес
- Robert Burns: Epitaph For Mr. W. Cruikshank:
- Never Bite A Married Woman On The Thigh by Shel Silverstein
- Infanta Marina by Wallace Stevens
- Plague Victims Catapulted Over Walls Into Besieged City by Thomas Lux
- On The Grasshopper And Cricket poem – John Keats poems
- Владимир Костров – Письмо в никуда
- The cake by Mahak Raithatha S
- Владимир Высоцкий – Нынче мне не до улыбок
- Михаил Кузмин – Выздоравливающей
- Strange Fruit by Seamus Heaney
- Alone in the Wind, on the Prairie by Vachel Lindsay
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
- The Giver by Sara Teasdale
- The Gift by Sara Teasdale
- The Flight by Sara Teasdale
- The Faery Forest by Sara Teasdale
- The Dreams Of My Heart by Sara Teasdale
- The Crystal Gazer by Sara Teasdale
- The Coin by Sara Teasdale
- The Cloud by Sara Teasdale
- The Carpenter’s Son by Sara Teasdale
- The Broken Field by Sara Teasdale
- The Blind by Sara Teasdale
- The Answer by Sara Teasdale
- Spring In War Time by Sara Teasdale
- Soul’s Birth by Sara Teasdale
- A Song To Eleonora Duse In “Francesca da Rimini ” by Sara Teasdale
- Song At Capri by Sara Teasdale
- Since There Is No Escape by Sara Teasdale
- The Return by Sara Teasdale
- Pity by Sara Teasdale
- Pierrot’s Song by Sara Teasdale
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
