Tuesday, March 02, 2021

Tuesday poem #413 : kevin mcpherson eckhoff : feels like I haven’t written a poem in a long time, / but if I had it might’ve looked something like this

 

 

last week our dog couldn’t walk
and these words think they want
to become something more

than a poem but I can’t stop
thinking of this news article

I read a month or so ago about
a 12-year-old boy who died

locked in his room without
food or a toilet the windows

boarded over by his parents
while the rest of their kids ate

dinner and watched TV and
went to school whatever our

internet cuts out at random
which makes working from home

difficult I try to drink enough
water each day but it just seems

to go right through me stupid
poetry every season a handful

of new birds smash headfirst
into one of our large windows

and the garbage always needs
to go out my 5-year-old has

worn the same Pink Floyd shirt
every day for 8 months although

now it’s only sleeves and collar and
he has a panic attack every time he

tries on a different shirt when is
this poem going to end our well

doesn’t produce as much water
as our family needs you can see

a glass frog’s vital organs through
its skin according to Okanagan

College’s standardized grading
system 76% equals a B-plus today

Laurel brought home a small
box of ashes and we have half

a prescription of Deramaxx

 

 

kevin mcpherson eckhoff is a writer, teacher, editor, comedian, and actor. His work has been anthologized in The New Concrete and Why Poetry Sucks and Experimental Praxis. His most recent book is their biography (BookHug, 2015) and his fifth book, The Pain Itself, is forthcoming from Insert Blanc Press. He appears in Sean Braune's yet-to-be-released directorial debut, Nuptials, with Ariana Marquis. He currently occupies the traditional Syilx territories where Okanagan College pays him to gab about words, bookmaking, and acting with rad student folks. 

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan

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