Thrush Poetry Journal
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Charlie Clark
​

How I want my father to die
 
has changed
in a June
 
not
this June
 
this morning
hushed
 
as breath
before a painting
 
of a saint having
something crucial
 
removed
with eyes that still
 
and familiar
uplifted blue
 
no not a saint’s
pains’ staged
 
portrait
quieter still
 
more
a still life
 
two milk-cloud
pots holding
 
drooping splays
of orange
 
flowers up
a cotton
 
cloth’s knotty
white trim
 
beneath
what this refuses
 
to be is
a petition
 
never the less
I look up
 
and see
some clouds
 
and shadows
shift
 
thoughtfully
I think
 
not here
not now
 
this now
proceeding
 
as uncertainly
as my
 
syntax
let this
 
now be
for thanks
 
let it be
just
 
another June
cooler
 
than most
and home
 
behind the house
in the netted
 
stretch
of the garden
 
the compendium
of him
 
bent
lip curled
 
whispering
box scores or
 
head filled
all at once
 
with the smell
of walking
 
Grand Blvd
in late July ’67
 
carrying
a satchel
 
of bread
and milk
 
tiny horsehair
brush in hand
 
trying
to pollinate
 
his tomatoes
no the corn-
 
yellow buds
brandished
 
by five young
vines of
 
zucchini
because zucchini
 
is a simple-
enough
 
word
I never the less
 
for three whole
years forgot
 
so already
it feels familiar
 
when my mouth
opens and
 
from it
the proper
 
word refuses
to dislodge 




Charlie Clark studied poetry at the University of Maryland. His work has appeared in New England Review, Ploughshares, Threepenny Review, and other journals. A 2019 NEA fellow and recipient of scholarships to the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, he is the author of The Newest Employee of the Museum of Ruin (Four Way Books, 2020). He lives in Austin, TX.




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