On the Pier
I gazed at a moment
From the Marblehead shore
On the pier’s end
A thick muscled arm
Thrust into lake Erie
When the early morning sun
Bounced on the horizon
An infant Apollo tossing
Flecks of gold leaf paint
Across a restless surface
A father and son cast
Then hook and net two bass
Their rods bowing in unison
Just as a mom and baby
In her stroller arrive
A Madonna and child
Bringing luck
The men seem to want
To rub the baby’s head
With fishy hands
The fisherman and their catch
Pose for a snapshot
The mouths of the fish
Sucking the air for water
Open as wide as
The men’s boyish grins
And an old couple arrive
On skinny weathered legs
In time to see the fish
Returned to the waves
Their scales for a moment
Throwing a reflection of light
Waiting for Dad
Not so long ago when Dad was spotting timber
I’d follow him up
Steep wooded hills
And beg him to wait
As I caught my breath
His silhouette ablaze
By the sun at the crest
And now after he’s lit up
And sucked down the smoke
Of five decades of cigarettes
The white sticks tally marks
Of hours days and years
After I quit worrying about
Cancer emphysema and stroke
He helps me move from Main Street to Hill Road
And as we dance
With a fat mattress
He asks me to wait
At the top of the stairs
His lungs clutching at air
His chest and
My heart heaving
For Thirty-Eight Years
After thirty-eight years
I need a few pills
To ease the ache
Of love’s history
There wasn’t much schooling
For love when I was growing up
For thirty-eight years
I’ve worked at love
Like being tied to the line
For ten and twelve hour shifts
Or for thirty-eight years
Shoveling corn
Or cow shit all day
And digging post holes
For putting up fence
After thirty-eight years
I see love easily
Wrapping warmth
Around my heart
When my baby daughter
Tosses me a smile
Like she’s been doing it
For thirty-eight years
Pills
Clasp the comfort
Of an amber bottle
When shaken distracts
Like a baby’s rattle reads
Take two tablets twice a day
To smile permanently
An immaculate plastic smile
To recite the right words
At the right time
To the right face
To get noticed and promoted
Gratified and acquitted
To get what’s wanting
When it’s craving
Where it’s lacking
There’s no need to gnaw
On the bitter pretty colors
There’s no need to swallow hard
Kiss them before they slide
Over the tongue and slip
Smoothly into the belly’s nest
Shoving despair aside
There’s no need to notice
A hollowness in a promise
Surging through the veins
With ardent seduction
They’re absolutely-iron-clad-guaranteed
To keep a head serene
In My Pocket
I carry pain in my pocket
A small smooth stone
Once an ugly jagged rock
Dulled and polished
By the stream’s hard current
My hand finds it easily – as predictably
As winter drifts and spring buds
And occasionally I remove it
From my denim reliquary
Open my fist and in my palm
Exhibit it as a famous gem
Its mysticism as potent
As a splinter of the true cross
I chat casually about its history
As a bored museum guard
Or as an old veteran who shows
A wide-eyed boy the bullet
Which pierced his chest in the Pacific
On a few winter days each year
I allow the tears to fall
Like snowflakes drifting
Large and reluctantly
From heaven to earth
To wet the stone
And wear it away
Slightly more
Five Stitches
Five stitches in my back
I can’t reach the wound
Only you can dress it
Each morning before work
With ointment bandage and tape
In hurried maneuvers
Or in a slow loving ritual
We do this together as with
Groceries supper dishes laundry cleaning
Raising our children
And when the day is finished
Falling asleep entwined
In front of the TV
Or making love
With drowsy tenderness
And with a little passion
About the Author.
David Sapp, writer and artist, is the recipient of Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Grants for poetry and art and is a Pushcart nominee. His poetry and prose appear widely in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Asia. His publications include articles in the Journal of Creative Behavior; several chapbooks; a novel, Flying Over Erie; a book of poems and drawings, Drawing Nirvana; and four books of poetry and prose, Love and History, Acquaintances, A Precious Transience, and a memoir titled The Origin of Affection, winner of the Violet Reed Haas Poetry Award.