Coming Thaw
This ice that masks the sidewalks and streets
easily gives in to metaphors of grief.
We all easily give in to metaphors of grief
when we think we’ve lost both justice and peace.
They redressed the faults of both justice and peace
in unwashed brown shirts and bloodstained sheets.
They ranked and filed in brownshirts and sheets
to the beats of batons on riot shields.
Batons on riot shields slap the steady beat
of cadence on the frozen land beneath.
This cadence on the frozen land beneath
is soft, like a knife slipped out of its sheath.
Unnoticed, like a knife slipped out of its sheath,
thawed ice unmasks the sidewalks and streets.
Brotherhood
Edenic brotherhood offers a bitter taste
of love. Abel acquired none from his vain brother,
Cain. Named as an acquisition by their mother,
who judges him for hating the fleeting field mist?
Sarah heard Ishmael mock her son, her only son,
Isaac, the day she weaned him from suckling her breasts.
Esau devoured a lentil stew red as clay earth
when Jacob slid his palm beneath their father’s thigh.
Jacob struggled against God less than his sons fought,
Each one added weight to the woe of the old man.
When has a father not had a favorite son
or a mother not give her heart to another?
When my brother was born, I slept with my father
on a plaid pull-out couch, he ten years home from war.
Awake past midnight, we watched Is Paris Burning?
Warfare takes man forms for the sons of Adam.
The next day my mom returned with an infant son.
His eyes were a distorted mirror reflecting me
in ways I did not recognize. Filled with anger and awe,
since then, I have never seen myself in the same way.
Richard Stimac has published a poetry book Bricolage (Spartan Press), two poetry chapbooks, and one flash fiction chapbook. In his work, Richard explores time and memory through the landscape and humanscape of the St. Louis region.