DESKTOP

The orange I just

peeled 

in the kitchen 

over the sink

and brought in here 

to my desk on a 

green plate 

under the light now

is more bright 

and gloriously

orange than

the colors on the dust jackets

right next to it or

the colors on the apps 

on the computer screen 

behind it.

 

OCCASION

There was some New Year’s 

dance at

the high school in the next 

town over where

my girlfriend went.

I wound up going.

One of those

mirrored balls 

hung from the ceiling 

shining pieces of light

on the gym floor.

 

PAPERS

For Christmas 

I gave the person who

puts the Times

outside my morning door 

$20.

I waited inside  

until I heard the paper land.

I hurried into the hallway then

to find 

a short Latinx woman in 

jeans with her red 

beanie pulled down.

We’d never seen each other.

She was likely 

undocumented and shy and 

uncertain when I

came toward her with an envelope.

THE GOSPEL TRUTH

In the car 

in Wyoming with

my granddaughters from school

the middle one

8 then

said, Pops, where

did you go to school?

At the Catholic school right across

from my house, I said.

What’s Catholic? she said.

SWEETEST

Best plate of anything

ever

was a plate of Christmas cookies

on our cozy kitchen table tight up against a window

of outdoor weather.

My mother insecurely was not a baker.

Her sister down the street could make ‘em though and

so could the aunt who lived with us and

so could the also-cozy bakery on Main Street

whose unique color combinations of sugar and frosting

we’re eye-catching

as was the orange hair on the Fitzpatrick family 

who ran the place.

 

I JUST BOUGHT THIS BUNCH OF MAGAZINES for the twin grandchildren here. I sent a similar stack to the Wyoming grandchildren. You wish kids who don’t read well could get to pick out mags they were attracted to. That’s why you learn to read so you can read about stuff that grabs you. Sports or music or whatever.

 

POET NIKKI GIOVANNI in a review of her new book of poems in today’s Times:

‘There is no / way not to like Black Americans,” she writes in “Lemonade Grows From Soil, Too.” “We try to practice love. / We use the chicken feet to make a stew; we take the scraps of / cloth to make the quilt. We find the song in the darkest days / to say ‘put on your red dress, baby, ‘cause we’re going out / tonight,’ understanding we may be lynched on the way home / but knowing between that cotton field and that house party / something wonderful has been shared.’

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/16/books/nikki-giovanni-make-me-rain.html?referringSource=articleShare