David A. Bart - poems
  • Intro
  • Home
  • Kingdom Come
  • Tunnel of Love
  • Exit Now
  • The Passion
  • Texas Education
  • Dumb Supper
  • Good Year
  • Toys
  • Saint Michael and the Devil
  • Invisible Knights
  • The Rain Gauge
  • Ponder
  • Remainder
  • Green Ghost
  • December 13th
  • Dedication
  • Prevailing Wind
  • Dreamland 1911
  • 10
  • On the Median
  • These Things Happen
  • White Water
  • The October People
  • Scene from a Moral Panic
  • Estrellita
  • Another Ending
  • What We're Dealing With
  • How Did the Foxes Die?
  • There was a Man
  • Bio. and credits
Dedication


To my wife.
To our smallest child
who died inside her.
“After today, this will be
just a bad memory,”
the name the surgeon gave
our own unborn.

To our son, staring
at my face to see
the little boy reflected
in each pupil,
which also means little doll.

To my mother
who always read to me.
Her mind took her
inside a troubled land
where no fusillade of cards
could wake her.
“It's a poor sort of memory
that works only backward,”
the Queen told Alice.

To everyone gathered
that night on our patio
when a thud against
the sliding door startled us.
To the wobbling screech owl
dazed by the blow
and our parakeet, cheerily
oblivious behind
a palisade of glass.
To all the walls we keep, unaware
until something comes for us.



Poet Lore, Fall / Winter 2014


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