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Poetry month just ended, and the Berkeley Library printed some wonderful poems by local poets. When soliciting work, they sent out a sample of last year’s choices and I liked this one by Ed Hirsch:
Cotton Candy
We walked on the bridge over the Chicago River
for what turned out to be the last time,
and I ate cotton candy, that sugary air,
that sweet blue light sun out of nothingness.
It was just a moment, really, nothing more,
but I remember marveling at the sturdy cables
of the bridge that held us up
and threading my fingers through the long
and slender fingers of my grandfather,
an old man from the Old World
who long ago disappeared into the nether regions,
and I remember that eight-year-old boy
who had tasted the sweetness of air,
which still clings to my motuth
an disappears when I breathe.
Edward Hirsch
I submitted two poems, which they accepted. Here’s the one I like best of those:
Bikini Ode
How artfully it draws the eye
to just those parts
it’s meant to hide.
Meryl Natchez