Two Poems by Michael Simms

Ecstasy

Someone offered me Ecstasy
And I wondered what they had in mind.
Perhaps lying on a beach on the island
of Antigua, the sun on my skin, a red sail
in the distance soon to arrive?
Cooking a marinara sauce while listening
To Pavarotti reach the high notes?
Waking in bed next to you, light
Slanting across the bed, our love
Awake again after sleeping too long?
Watching you push our daughter
Into the midwife’s hands, the tiny face
squinched against the new day,
an old soul among us again? Sledding
with our son down the long hill
Of his childhood, and years later
Holding him in my arms after
He emerged from the darkness
Still alive? My falling on my knees
After the years of worry, thanking
What-is for delivering this miracle?
What is Ecstasy, but a blue pill
Of gratitude, a recognition
all I love is an undeserved gift
slipping away even now?

*

Envy

I hear on NPR an interview
with my friend from grad school
who won a Presidential Medal
and stood on the White House lawn
with other luminaries of our age.
My friend is appropriately
modest about her accomplishment
so I say to my wife Good for her
no one deserves fame more
but an ugly little corner of my soul
hates my friend’s success
because it makes me feel small
untalented and undeserving. I spend
the rest of the day brooding about
my trifling pathetic life, writing for
a handful of indulgent friends and
former students. After a day of staring
at the white screen of my failure
I hear you come through the door
home at last from the trauma workshop
you teach. You tell me of a young man
who held his dying brother in his arms
after a drive by and how the family
is still grieving years later and how
the workshop has given the young man
a few tools to help his family recover
and then we read an email from a friend
who now lives with her two children
in a refugee shelter in Poland
while her husband is fighting
somewhere near the Russian border
and I think of my own brave brother
in Houston who discovered the provost
of his university has been lying
and stealing and Jack went
on television to speak truth to power
and lost his job… And even my dog Josie
faces each day with the thrill of play,
the joy of long walks through the alleys
and faith I’ll place a bowl of her favorite foods
on the floor. And then you pull pasta
out of the pantry, I dress a green salad
with care and my self-pity fades
into the evening ritual of loving gestures
and I feel joy and gratitude for the gifts
I’ve been given in this one small life

*

Michael Simms is the founder of Vox Populi and Autumn House Press. His poetry collections include American Ash, Nightjar and Strange Meadowlark. His speculative fiction novels include Bicycles of the Gods and The Talon Trilogy. His poems have appeared in Poetry (Chicago), Poem-a-Day published by The Academy of American Poets, ONE ART and Plume Poetry. In 2011, Simms was awarded a Certificate of Recognition from the Pennsylvania State Legislature for his service to the arts.