grandchildpoem #6
jay, soon thirteen, wants a
padded
asbestos fireproof room and a
fireproof suit and a flame
thrower
and firelighters and firecrackers
the cherry bomb kind and a
blowtorch
and things that blow up lighter fluid
gasoline and stuff
like that an oxygen
mask of course and tank but if he
can’t
have any of those he’ll settle for cds
video games
a new baseball mitt an
ipod and a fat sci fi book number seven
in the
series grandma will get it
© Jacqueline Jackson 2008
I don’t often talk about poetic forms in this
column, thinking that most of my readers aren’t interested in how the
clock works and would rather be given the time. But the following poem by
Veronica Patterson of Colorado has a subtitle referring to a form, the senryu, and I thought it might
be helpful to mention that the senryu is a Japanese form similar to haiku but dealing with
people rather than nature. There; enough said. Now you can forget the form
and enjoy the poem, which is a beautiful sketch of a marriage.
Marry Me
a senryu sequence
when I come late to bed
I move your leg flung over my side —
that warm gate
nights you’re not here
I inch toward the middle
of this boat, balancing
when I turn over in sleep
you turn, I turn, you turn,
I turn, you
some nights you tug the edge
of my pillow under your cheek,
look in my dream
pulling the white sheet
over your bare shoulder
I marry you again
Poem copyright © 2000 by Veronica Patterson,
whose most recent book of poetry is This Is
the Strange Part (Pudding House Publications,
2002). American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation,
publisher of Poetry magazine.
It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln.
Ted Kooser served as the U.S. poet laureate
2004-2006. For more information, go to
www.americanlifeinpoetry.org.
This article appears in Jul 17-23, 2008.
