refuge

August 6, 2022

A WELL REHEARSED SILENCE

Of course there is something I ought
to say, moments like this require it,
it goes without saying, painfully.

I practiced lines for hours, rehearsed
in my dreams for weeks, knew
for years I’d be rendered mute.

My tongue swells, threatening
to escape my mouth or take refuge
deep within my esophagus.

Your silence is only compounding
my anxiety, how can I, a man
of words, be rendered silent

by the thought of speaking to you,
of telling you that I finally now
joyously have what I feared I wouldn’t ever.

A wife and lover deserves
better than this.

April 23, 2019

MY REFUGE

This poem appeared in the March, 2019 edition of Bluestem Magazine.  You can find this and other great writing here:  http://bluestemmagazine.com/

For many years, L was my refuge,
when I grew tired of being the butt
of an endless stream of fatty jokes.

I could find some solace in H or F,
but L was a special place, where
so many things could be found

that I had never, ever considered,
much less paused to carefully view
from every possible known angle.

My L was older, born in 1903, and
it sat comfortably in the midst
Of its peers, hiding in plain sight.

L and all its cousins are now
long gone, donated or hauled away,
I wasn’t consulted, one day

it was simply gone, and nothing more
was said, and with it went my 14,989 friends
that lived in that volume of our OED.