Poetry
You opened this door. Forced it back/
on its hinges, drove in the thin wedge, saying/
“I may need to enter at a moment’s notice.”
if I slurred my speech, if I stuttered,/
if I could not swallow, which variable/
would make me less worthy of living?
These days I think of you/
on the yellow chaise/
with your Parkinson’s/
and hatred of telephones,
Jason Schneiderman reads “Luggage,” a poem by Ted Kooser
Everything she did that day/
was the hardest thing/
she’d done, but it felt easy.
“There are more important things I should be doing at the age of forty-two”/
you say, showing me photos of your daughter in a pink, fluffy tutu and I
The world mostly gone, I make it what I want: / from the balcony, the morning is a silver robe of mist / I make a reckless blessing of it
His worn-out T-shirt, black as mourning, black / as countless deaths, surprises me
A wingspan so wide it soared beyond the sidewalk / like a small plane. I turned, I had to turn, find where it landed