issue 24 > poetry > burnham

The father's face is round and gray;
the son's is round and smeared with tears
and snot and orange Cheezits dust.
He's lost his ticket; the father's calm
until the boy wails I want
to stay with you. He cried for water,
chips, he cried out to his mother,
two states away, to send his father
off to jail.

Two attendants held him, the father
waved, standing on the Cuyahoga's
frozen bank, ready to throw, gently,
with all his strength, that small tough
body across Ohio to
the Chesapeake, into the angry
eager body waiting there, digging
into the spongy ice.






Also by Deborah Burnham:

Water and Air