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| Michael Morse |
Children
I’m out of touch with children,
but I was a child.
Everything the child sees is big.
To the child, people are big, big as trees.
The field is vast, the river wide and deep,
wider, deeper for the child.
You too were once a child, a son.
Why you took your own life is a mystery.
In college you played baseball,
second base, as I see you on the diamond.
When we met, you said “recovering.”
I didn’t see you fall off the wagon.
Five o’clock shadow,
rumpled chinos, blond hair thinning,
The Paradise Lounge, your abyss.
I call from my side of the river,
as if you could hear.
For the child, all is magnified: a twig
on the ground in the woods,
damp earth, mint freshness of leaves,
crisp winter leaves under his or her feet.
In the woods of childhood, joy warbles.
The child hears, keener than I.
One morning in a restaurant,
you harangued the server about no milk
for your coffee.
I live with trees and rain.
Originally published in Bluepepper, a defunct Australian journal.
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| Peter Mladinic |
Peter Mladinic's most recent book of poems, Maiden Rock, is available from Uncollected Press. An animal rights advocate, he lives in Hobbs, New Mexico, United States.
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