Grace Period
After several years, a friend calls to say his son has died, has taken his life, and all I can say is I’m sorry, I am so sorry and hold my baby closer,
my sweet boy who straddles my hip and screaks and flails, trying to talk throughout our conversation.
And I know that my friend can hear him and that it must pain him, each little joyful keee like a clamp
tightening while I tell him he and his wife must come over and he says, yes, and what is unspoken is the hope the baby will bring cheer,
the way babies do, whole maternity wards of them swaddled in their rolling bassinets, lined up along the plate glass barriers
for the new fathers to stand before staring at the infants’ inch long fingers or perfect lashes, marveling.
Or would it be too much, that memory of wriggling child, the troutlike struggle to get down, the way my son does now, eager to crawl away from me.
Bamboo
How they lean, the bamboo poles, hollow cavities of light, strong as rain and the running creek rain creates in the dry bed
behind us. The stones shine. This morning the bamboo advanced again, brushed its leafy shawls across my window,
flutter-tonguing its low sounds, tapered leaves like tapered candles, wicks lit, then gone. We cut them back, limb by green
notched limb, stalks piled up, too long and shaggy to cart away. We slash their roots, entrench them. We squash
their missile shoots, lean out, defend our turf again in a war that’s never won. What war is? Lean in, the bamboo say.
To the Rower in Bosch’s Ship of Fools
You do not have to solve for x, nor chew theory from its greasy bone. You can put down the torches, balls
and pins. The air will not miss them. The flag will still ripple its Cheshire grin and translate the wind.
The bard still gets the mead. Your boat is sailless. Lean into its small song and never mind
you are misunderstood; the owl sees all, knows all. Someone else may get the goose, the cake dangling
on a string. Let their laughter flow downstream. Never mind Icarus ignored the sun, the north star disappeared.
You are afloat. Your friends are here. The storm may wallop. You, steering with your wooden spoon, why not sing?
Christina Daub is both a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominated poet whose work can be found in The Connecticut Review, The Cortland Review, Poet Lore, Potomac Review among other journals. Her poems have been translated into German, Italian and Russian. She co-founded The Plum Review, its reading series and annual retreats. More at christinadaub.com