...
At which corner in the living room do you sit
strapped in fear? While others move to him,
my heart beats in repeated immobility,
as his does, less responsive, lying on the floor.
It’s less important whether there’s story here,
like it’s less important to run for the pill bottle,
jog to the drugstore, ingest placebo or more
by mouth. You go stiff by lacking to love,
failing to move. I say it was simple fear
that motivated my inaction, with Father
on his back on the living room carpet,
unmoving as false ceiling squares.
All those little holes to let air out.
Cornered here, I still tell him
I’m learning to let love in.
...
Jan Wiezorek writes from Michigan and walks daily among the beech forest of McCoy Creek Trail. He is author of the poetry chapbooks Prayer’s Prairie (Michigan Writers Cooperative Press) and Forests of Woundedness (forthcoming in September 2025 from Seven Kitchens Press). Wiezorek’s work has appeared in The London Magazine, The Westchester Review, BlazeVOX, Pine Hills Review, Triggerfish Critical Review, and Vita Poetica. He taught writing at St. Augustine College, Chicago, and he holds a master’s degree in English Composition/Writing from Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago. The Poetry Society of Michigan awarded him, and he is a Pushcart Prize nominee.
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