Poetics Presents

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Poetics Presents

Michael Waterson

Michael Waterson is an actor/writer with an MFA in Creative Writing from Mills College. He has been published in numerous small magazines. He also writes and performs with a traditional Irish band.

Receipt for Homemade Life

Start from scratch with an ordinary day,
the sun an unbroken yolk
sliding into a blue bowl.
Fold in attic images with a wooden spoon:
a mote-filled ray through a dingy dormer window.
a box of books, yellow, gilt-edged pages,
with ink figures like scrimshaw;
a patch of grass spattered with split plums;
yesterday's news folded
and stuffed in the door-jamb
against ruthless January.
Sprinkle lightning bugs and katydids.
Bake endless summer evenings.
Remove to the back of your mind to cool while
moving table to actuarial table: work and love,
marriage, rearing, and divorce.
Uncover years later and salt
with enough tears to float
barge-loads of nostalgia
for coal-bin winters and warm bushels,
for the fire-gutted red brick shell;
for the cobblestone alley
where you stood and stand,
weeping stranger;
for the blank-page bones
of the devoured days.

Copyright (c) 2002 by Michael Waterson