Poems October 2009
Welcome to all the pleasures
My grandfather—German
With shoulders of granite,
Of beer and blue skies,
Blast furnaces—grew impatient
When he learned that, at four,
I still had not learned to swim.
He hoisted me in summer air,
Spun me out over
The sluggish murk and let go.
I swore the river had no bottom.
The wind was wasp and pollen,
Charred pork and dragonfly.
I smacked the sun-fierce surface
With a sharp cold crash,
Then silence and stunned slowness.
I finned and swung,
Hung between what glows above
And what pulls below.
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This article originally appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 28 Number 2, on page 31
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