Tim Suermondt

Seniority

 

I walk with my father,

my older steadiness

helping his old unsteadiness.

He slips a few times,

but my grip makes him

fall proof. “It never used

to be this hard,” he says,

refusing to walk even slower.

“Apple trees, I like apple

trees”—I don’t see any,

though I tell him we’ll pick

everyone of them clean later.

Back in the apartment he slides

into his favorite chair, caressing

the arms, staring into space—

what exactly does he see?

I bring him a blanket, but he

waves it off. “Just bring me an apple

for dinner. I could eat a horse.”

It’s the kind of logic I’ve come to love.


Tim Suermondt’s sixth full-length book of poems, A Doughnut and The Great Beauty of the World,” will be forthcoming from MadHat Press in 2021. He has published in Poetry, Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, The Georgia Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Stand Magazine, december magazine, On the Seawall, Innisfree Poetry Journal, and Plume, among many others. He lives in Cambridge (MA) with his wife, the poet Pui Ying Wong.

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