A Better Friend

SO MUCH SNOW THEN

In the early morning poems

of Robert Bly, deer everywhere

in the dense grove of the beloved

Further away, in North Dakota,

my father plugs in the Plymouth

battery running from the house

so the engine won’t freeze

during the night. Even then,

my frozen breath on the window

Jim Bodeen

20 July 2015

My brother is walking again

Grief enters this time

as a better friend

Jim Bodeen

17 July 2015

SCAR TISSUE

Poems from notebook

all morning with cold coffee

pre-Columbian gold

parking lot under

white birch trees Bob Dylan songs

two still leaves sunburned

Why this popcorn ride!

Water drought mirrors summer walk

as though I’d been gone

Jim Bodeen

16-19 July 2015