The RetroLounge Daily Poem Thread (Sun 12/31/06)

[RetroLounge]

Our Parents’ Stamina

We marveled at our parents’ stamina,
their stoic calm when we were bored and young—
how they could stand the heat in the berry patches,
or strip chicken carcasses down to the last
scrap, wait in beach-bound traffic and not cry,
endure a tie and swallow medicines
and oratory sitting still—afraid
but sure in time they’d teach the art to us.

We did not know that it was we who taught
the art to them, how to snap alert from sleep
and place the blistered nipple in our mouths,
hold back their tears at our vaccinations, hush
their hurried passion’s climax—we did not know
how we had turned them into stones that love.

Garret Kiezer

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RL

If you have a request for a certain Poet, post their name in the thread and I will find a poem by them and post it...

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