T. Anders Carson
A torn hamstring
Each morning a soft prayer.
Each day superstition grows.
Each hour his pain
of holding hands with Alzheimer’s.
You can see the hurt look
of his wife.
Lines drawing deeper
carving her face into
a sphere of anxiety and sadness.
He was a hero in the war
bombing cities and civilians.
Dropping them from the chapped sky
as would a child with pennies
in a gum machine.
Years later,
they returned to the English Channel.
His plane went down
on his first mission.
He floated to safety and flew
numerous routes again.
Holding his wife’s hands
they look across the scaled water.
Military planes and boats
are performing manoevers.
Resounding shots fired intermittently
bordering on random.
At the funeral home
people waddle in.
Hair curled,
clothes neatly pressed.
Ushers play coyly with
funerary flowers.
Flicking them into place
as would an elderly shepherd
with a stray sheep.
Singing begins,
tears of controlled madness.
Hymns played peacefully
behind a Venetian style parlor.
Murmuring of prayers
eyes gently reddening,
memories.
If life’s only sting of pain
could be felt
pulling a hamstring,
playing ball with your son.
Page(s) 68
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The