Perry Nicholas has been published by Word Worth^® in August and October of 2008. These poems are from his new book, What the World Sees.

Goddess of Light

To a friend on the recent passing of his mother

The lines on your face

seem deeper, darker somehow,

your body more slumped

with the realization that she

will be gone within days.

 

She might scold you, tell you

to straighten up, if she could talk.

She might bring daylight back

to your face, like Apollo’s mother,

if she could lift her hand.

 

Don’t apologize to the world

for mourning a mother at your age,

keeping her close longer than most.

Even Apollo needed Leto.

And she an island for you,

 

more than just a place to rest.

Softly kiss her warm forehead,

help her melt into the dawn.

 

On the Porch with my Daughter, Now a Woman

It takes an effort to ignore the tug

of my office, urging me inside to record

some of this. Poetry perched beside me,

 

long legs drawn up to her chest, shoulders

defying sunburn, we achieve a rhythm in our talk,

volleying familiar phrases: the persistent robin,

 

a chimney-like neighbor, the tired song

of the same-old ice cream truck.

We anticipate responses before they land,

 

comfortably serve them up without thinking. 

She listens more closely today, especially

to the pauses, as if focused on the odd music

 

pillowed in my chest. Her ear used to rest there

while we napped, always the silent scanner.

She hasn’t lost that ability, and she counts down

 

my rant about how people who Facebook

are not friends and texting is not writing,

at least not by any definition I was ever taught.

 

I am her friend. She is my friend, I lecture. 

She’s content to share this concrete step as equals,

as I join her in a father’s perfect awkward crouch. 

Twenty-Five Year Sabbatical

I’m not going to apologize

for the long silence or attempt

to carve a stone. Who was it,

anyway, who said poetry

has to be written into the future?

Maybe I was just waiting

for the subway doors to open,

or locks to close, waters

to rise. I didn’t know then

and don’t know now.

 

What I suspect, though, is this:

there was a gap, a chasm

between youth and ungodly loss,

guilt and solitude, providing me

with a reason for insomnia,

up all night to explain it away.
 

Dual Courses

After Two Canoes, a photograph by Jolene Rickard

Existing in parallel universes,

Native Americans conceived the notion

 

of two canoes paddling along a stream

straight up to the sky, oars never touching.

 

Two paths, two races, two tongues.  

I began on the left, in a Greek land.

 

Navigating a translated world, I capsized

several times, pulled myself up and over

 

the side of one canoe or the other, listened

for where the current seemed calmer.

 

I spoke Greek to my mother, English to father,

and with my brother devised a half-Greek secret code.

 

We learned when you lose your parents as guides,

you return to the place where you first found rest.   

 

Which language do you dream in? I asked

my mother, and for her, it was a rooted response.

 

For me, a mixed marriage of foreign sounds.
 

On Top of My Garage Door Opener, A Robin

builds and re-builds her nest, the first time

loosely with very slight strands of brush

to tease, coax a reaction out of me.  I sweep

 

it away, and she scatters outside to a safer world.

Days later, noticing traces of mud on my car hood,

I realize she has become more determined,

 

fashioning a fortress out of mud and heavier branches

as if to say let’s see who perseveres.  Scraping

the thick, persistent walls from atop the metal box,

 

I’m confident I have won. But she is not

to be outdone by any man. This morning I fling

open the door and she sits, exhausted but proud,

 

peering over the wall of yet another castle;

we stare each other down. I experience déjà vu,

a showdown from my youth, but decide to walk away,

 

just as a woman once let me off the hook

when I insisted on winning, since sometimes,

gaining the upper hand just leaves us right and alone.
 

Alien Natures

It doesn’t take more than a moment

in your presence to know

you are a very sad being.

Shoulders curve downward,

veins push through your hands,

your hair insists on gray.

 

So when I stand next to you,

I can’t help but feel it, and I’m sure

you sense my labored breathing, too.

We can’t cover up our commonality.

Our natures shine infrared, like pressing

 

a flashlight against a palm. As if

always embedded within. I only worry

no one accepts us as human anymore. 

I know this says something about

trees falling in the forest. Or stars

trapped behind their critical clouds.