for Katie
by the glow of the cigarette she bummed, Madam Marie read her palm
overcoming the limitations of Etch-A-Sketch with a ball-peen hammer
I’ve given up on the idea of ever bending a spoon with my mind
the gray green Atlantic rollers on the way to my father’s first wave
Fuller’s Earth
her thumb print
next to mine
the staggering odds he was deifying depended on a simple utterance
foreman berating Snot-rocket at the work site
bird migration
Hitchcock rushes to board before the closing doors
of the bus in my consciousness
three fairy ‘glees’ for the soul of Jack Kerouac
he came out in the heat to pick a leaf up off the lawn
her dead son’s shoeshine box
the footrest
size 9
Governments of this overheated world, ashamed before astral travelers
“I’ve given up on the idea of ever bending a spoon with my mind”
Seldom do lines, poetic or prose, stab the mind. But this did me. By that line, and the remainder of the poem, you’ve moved me deeply. Thank you.
Best wishes, from Brooks Lindberg.
Thank you, Brooks, I appreciate your close reading. It means a lot.