by Keith Woodruff

Delivery Driver

Her car's always in bloom;
suds of red & white
balloons foam up inside
& sway
like the heads of drunks
being taxied home as she
turns a corner, balled
like a fist at the wheel,
while fronds of flowering plants
reach constantly over
the backseat & tap, tap
her on the shoulder as if to say turn here, turn here.

-Reprinted from Tar River Poetry, vol. 34, no.2, 1995 by permission of the poet.

American Life in Poetry: Column 100

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006

Here the Maine poet, Wesley McNair, offers us a vivid 
description of a man who has lived beyond himself.  I'd guess
you won't easily forget this sad old man in his apron
with his tray of cheese. 

The One I Think of Now

At the end of my stepfather's life
when his anger was gone,
and the saplings of his failed
nursery had grown into trees,
my newly feminist mother had him
in the kitchen to pay for all
those years he only did the carving.
"You know where that is,"
she would say as he looked
for a knife to cut the cheese
and a tray to serve it with,
his apron wide as a dress
above his workboots, confused
as a girl. He is the one I think of now,
lifting the tray for my family,
the guests, until at last he comes
to me. And I, no less confused,
look down from his hurt eyes as if
there were nothing between us
except an arrangement of cheese,
and not this bafflement, these
almost tender hands that once
swung hammers and drove machines
and insisted that I learn to be a man.

American Life in Poetry is made possible
by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported
by the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska, Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2002 by Wesley
McNair, whose most recent book is "The Ghosts of
You and Me," David R. Godine, 2006. Reprinted from
"Fire: Poems," published by David R. Godine, 2002,
by permission of the author. Introduction copyright (c)
2006 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author,
Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant
in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006.
We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

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American Life in Poetry: Column 099

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
My maternal grandparents got their drinking water from a well in the yard, and my disabled uncle carried it sloshing to the house, one bucket of hard red water early every morning. I couldn't resist sharing this lovely little poem by Minnesota poet, Sharon Chmielarz.

New Water

All those years--almost a hundred--
the farm had hard water.
Hard orange. Buckets lined in orange.
Sink and tub and toilet, too,
once they got running water.
And now, in less than a lifetime,
just by changing the well's location,
in the same yard, mind you,
the water's soft, clear, delicious to drink.
All those years to shake your head over.
Look how sweet life has become;
you can see it in the couple who live here,
their calmness as they sit at their table,
the beauty as they offer you new water to drink.

Reprinted by permission of Sharon Chmielarz, whose most recent collection of poems is "The Rhubarb King," Loonfeather Press, 2006. Copyright (c) 2006 by Sharon Chmielarz. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry. ******************************

by Robin Chapman

Valentines

In first grade, punching out
The cartoon speakers ballooning “Be mine,”
Laboriously copying names on the backs,
I learned who belonged to my class,
Not to leave anyone out,
And the terror and power of words—
Whether to sign this one “from” or “love”;

By fifth, the list mastered,
I concentrated on
The handmade art of the singled-out heart,
Folding the red construction paper in two
And cutting out half of the imagined whole
For a boy I was too shy to speak to,
Worrying over whether I should send
The one that was too skinny or too fat;

And so it went, over the years,
The ones I sent, the ones I read,
The ones signed “from” or “love,”
The ones that didn’t come, the ones
I didn’t send, the too-fat, too-skinny
Lopsided ones, the ones I bought myself,
While the real heart in the body beat steadily,
Keeping its faithful pace awake or asleep,
From first breath to last; unfolding

The morning paper last week to the hungry face
Of the Sudanese mother carrying the bones
Of her starving son on her shoulders,
Heart the only muscle he had left—
No words for the courage and power in her face,
Or the terror of the world,
Though I am frantically cutting out hearts
For every one of us,
All of them signed “love.”

-from The Dreamer Who Counted the Dead, poems by Robin Chapman (WordTech Editions, 2007). (to order)

American Life in Poetry: Column 098

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
A horse's head is big, and the closer you get to it, the bigger it gets.
Here is the Idaho poet, Robert Wrigley, offering us a horse's head,
up close, and covering a horse's character, too.

Kissing a Horse

Of the two spoiled, barn-sour geldings
we owned that year, it was Red--
skittish and prone to explode
even at fourteen years--who'd let me
hold to my face his own: the massive labyrinthine
caverns of the nostrils, the broad plain
up the head to the eyes. He'd let me stroke
his coarse chin whiskers and take
his soft meaty underlip
in my hands, press my man's carnivorous
kiss to his grass-nipping upper half of one, just
so that I could smell
the long way his breath had come from the rain
and the sun, the lungs and the heart,
from a world that meant no harm.

Reprinted from "Earthly Meditations: New and Selected Poems,"
published in 2006 by Penguin. Copyright (c) Robert Wrigley, 2006,
and reprinted by permission of the author. This weekly column is
supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and
the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.
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American Life in Poetry: Column 097 

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006

Though parents know that their children will grow up  
and away from them, will love and be loved by others,    
it's a difficult thing to accept. Massachusetts   
poet Mary Jo Salter emphasizes the poignancy of the   
parent/child relationship in this perceptive and    
compelling poem.  

Somebody Else's Baby

From now on they always are, for years now
they always have been, but from now on you know
they are, they always will be,

from now on when they cry and you say
wryly to their mother, better you than me,
you'd better mean it, you'd better

hand over what you can't have, and gracefully.

Reprinted from "New Letters," vol. 72, no. 3-4, 2006, 
by permission of the poet. Copyright (c) 2006 by    
Mary Jo Salter, whose most recent book of poetry   
is "Open Shutters," Knopf, 2003. This weekly column  
is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library 
of Congress, and the Department of English at the  
University of Nebraska-Lincoln. This column does not   
accept unsolicited poetry.  

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