I am happy to announce that my poem “The Complete History of the Boy” is the poetry feature of the month on the The Common so ably edited by poet John Hennessy
1.
The baby giggled in his crib.
His father walked in. “Why are you laughing?”
“Because,” the baby said, “we all have our joy.”
It was his first sentence.
When the baby had his own bed,
he said children are luckier than grownups
because they get to sleep in their own bed
while grownups have to share.
At four he was asked what he wanted
to be when he grew up. “Santa Claus,” he said.
That was Thanksgiving. By January he thought better of it.
“I never want to be a grown-up because
that would be the end of me.”
It was the age of the aphorism:
“Candles are statues that burn for the ceremony.”
“Saliva is the maid of your mouth.” (It cleanses it.
Science explained everything,
the workings of windshield wipers, for example:
“The darkness causes the rain
and comes from the rain, which goes up
to the sky and falls down again
on the windshield and the windows,
and you have to wipe the darkness off.”
For the rest of the poem, click here.
The photo of the author and Bruno (above) is from 1983.
https://www.thecommononline.org/november-2020-poetry-feature-david-lehman/
