~ ONE ART’s Top 10 Most-Read Poets of July 2023 ~
The Dervish
Reaching for a small glass
of apricot juice, I first noticed
the tremble.
It stopped when I danced:
head tilted, right palm up, left palm down,
whirling round.
“Parkinson’s,” a doctor said.
I listened
and the sky turned lavender.
After a year,
a friend carved a cane for me
etched with phases of the moon.
When I walk with my cane
around the village, the tremble
disappears like a hummingbird.
*
After the Isolation
After the coughs that pulled
the insides out
of pumpkins, after
the three Paxlovid tablets
twice a day, the Z Pack,
the Prednisone,
after I can be
with my old throat
again as if in prayer,
I drive
to the market
and see forsythias
blooming—
their bright yellow stems reaching up and out
on both sides
of the road
all along the way
*
The Sound
When Lowell learned
he’d have a few more weeks,
likely, he asked me to come over.
We sat downstairs by the wood stove
and looked out at the steady waves
and the light gray sky.
He gave me a box
of his favorite lures
for lake trout and whitefish.
When Carolyn came down
and said she had to go to the store,
she leaned over and hugged Lowell—
I heard the sound of their wet kiss.
*
Pup
Trust in the Journey
was the pup’s name;
he’d be six pounds or so
his whole life, the seller said.
My wife and I tried calling him Trust
but the name felt engraved
on a building and loan.
We chose Ollie with its long e
trailing in the air—
like a kid sledding
down a hill of fresh snow
holding that note of glee.
He’s black and white
with a gray beard;
his face looks like a Van Gogh
self-portrait.
When he runs,
he skips,
swaying
his hips.
Sometimes at night
he’ll lick the inside
of my left ear
then disappear.
*
William Palmer’s poetry has appeared recently in Braided Way, JAMA, J Journal, One Art, On the Seawall, Poetry East, and The Westchester Review. He lives in Traverse City, Michigan.
Maeve
She is wrapped
in a blanket with a blue glow
under her
to reduce her jaundice,
backlit like a small bough
on a Christmas tree.
My son changes her,
then lays her tenderly
in the curve of my arm.
She wears only a diaper,
her cord above it
hardened dark.
As I speak to her, her eyes move
on me, her tiny lips pushing out
in perfect circles, as if kissing air.
I touch her ruddy feet,
skim the soft skin
of her chest and cheeks.
I have forgotten
how my son felt newborn,
as if that part of me had fallen off.
Just a year ago,
my darkness black,
I thought of leaving.
And here, now,
I am holding Maeve,
her name Irish for joy.
*
William Palmer’s poetry has appeared recently in Braided Way, Innisfree, JAMA, J Journal, One Art, On the Seawall, Poetry East, Sheila-Na-Gig, and The Westchester Review. A retired professor of English at Alma College, he lives in Traverse City, Michigan.
A Green Veil
In college I bought a Casio
watch for a few bucks,
cut off its rubber straps,
and put it in my pocket,
pulling it out when needed.
It felt good in my hand like a stone.
When I taught, before
cell phones, I imagined
a green veil
over the clock
that lowered when class began
and rose when class ended.
I wanted time to disappear
for students
the way page numbers do
with a book
they discover
they love.
*
Cleaning the Picture Window
The disease, I say,
is shutting down parts of me
like bedrooms no one uses
in an old farmhouse.
I’m less a man
now, lacking the stamina
to mow the damn lawn
or clean the picture window.
Sometimes I want to go
into East Bay past the shelf
where the water turns dark
and sink.
Kevin, my therapist, asks,
“When your fatigue hits,
can you accept it and not judge
your life as worthless?”
Later,
sitting in my car,
I feel as if an abandoned garden
has been plowed—
something is being tilled.
*
William Palmer’s poetry has appeared recently in Cold Mountain Review, J Journal, One Art, On the Seawall, and Poetry East. He has published two chapbooks: A String of Blue Lights, and Humble. A retired professor of English at Alma College, he lives in Traverse City, Michigan.
Plates
He stands in his garage
beside the pile of plates
he bought at yard sales.
He takes one and flings it
at the steel door:
It was snowing—a whiteout
the boy said
whose car struck his wife
as she opened their mailbox.
The man lifts another plate,
feels its cold shine,
puts it down.
He sweeps the pieces
into a cardboard box
with the other pieces.
In the kitchen he sits
and closes his eyes:
a small door opens—
he finds a parcel
of light.
He thinks it will not go out.
*
William Palmer’s poetry has appeared recently in Cold Mountain Review, J Journal, On the Seawall, and Poetry East. He has published two chapbooks: A String of Blue Lights, and Humble. Retired from teaching English at Alma College, he lives on Grand Traverse Bay in northern Michigan.
