Tag: poems/poetry

Thomas Nguyen ~

Consider what remains: chipped yellow
            paint, roman candles, wilted gardenias,
so many photographs. Accept that

time makes things distant, that his
            absence doesn’t bleed into your memories
as much as it used to. Try harder and

harder to remember the last time
            you saw him, cords wrapped around
his legs like snakes, all white

and black, hidden underneath
            neatly-pressed khakis. And my melanomas,
he once showed you, with a smile.

Allie Gips

and for the third time my grandfather grabs the bottle of sparkling cider
and for the third time it is empty and for the third time his face falls
of all the things to forget this is not the saddest
he forgets how the trees are laid out in the woods behind his house,
forgets whether he took his pills in the morning, forgets to protect
my grandmother in the dark of the night
when he wakes to declare that the whole room stinks, it stinks so bad,
it stinks and he has to sleep elsewhere he tells my grandmother who clings
to him and begs stay with me, stay with me so i don’t