Untitled Document
maydaypoem #1
(perhaps by John
Knoepfle)
happy happy
first of may
screwing outside
begins
today
© Jacqueline Jackson 2007
Naomi Shihab Nye is one of my favorite poets. She
lives in San Antonio, Texas, and travels widely, an ambassador for poetry.
Here she captures a lovely moment from her childhood.
Supple Cord
My brother, in his small white bed, held one end. I tugged the other to signal I was still awake. We could have spoken, could have sung to one another, we were in the same room for five years, but the soft cord with its little frayed ends connected us in the dark, gave comfort even if we had been bickering all day. When he fell asleep first and his end of the cord dropped to the floor, I missed him terribly, though I could hear his even breath and we had such long and separate lives ahead.
Reprinted from A MAZE ME (Greenwillow, 2005) by permission of the author. Copyright
© Naomi Shihab Nye, whose most recent book of poetry is You and Yours (BOA Editions
Ltd., 2005). This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The
Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.
Ted Kooser served as the U.S. Poet Laureate from
2004-2006. For more information, go to www.americanlifeinpoetry.org.
This article appears in Apr 26 – May 2, 2007.
