Annual Report
       

Spring sends me its prospectus,
apple blossoms we mistook
for hawthorns, their white froth,

a moment's self-forgetfulness.
An eagle lifts a black cat,
dead on the road. Sometimes,

when I write, I lose track of time.
My assets—what? Dregs of nostalgia,
my body a pyramid scheme,

owing a debt that's come due.
A coyote jounces like a deer,
vague in the twilight.

Last night I woke at three a.m.,
chest pounding. As a boy,
I built paper planes, armadas,

stood on the footbridge.
A smoggy king and queen
ruled the blue air, the Empire State

and Chrysler buildings.
I skated under the black sky
of a city park, ran bases

on an empty baseball diamond,
and slid into home plate,
as if it were the bottom of the ninth.

I didn't expect a biopic
this week, or a biopsy, either.
When Giuliani got surgery,

didn't run for senator,
you said, He could've won,
Father. I said, He had cancer.

So what? you replied.
I breathe in Linda's plum trees.
Outside our apartment building

in Forest Hills, we had a maple tree.
Each fall, I sat on my windowsill,
took in the new car models,

memorized their upswept fins,
read The Kid from Tompkinsville,
punched my baseball mitt,

and muttered corny dedications
to outfielders who'd crashed
into walls, learned to pitch

with their other arm.
I must jump through some hoops
and knives?

Can do, says my voice
to the nurse, as if making a wager
on Jeopardy.

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Copyright © 2017 Richard Widerkehr All rights reserved
from In the Presence of Absence
MoonPath Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission