Deeper

Why were you always dirty? One tube sock striped green and the other red. Your doe eyes purple, lapping the mist of fasting sadness. Sleeping on mounds of soiled underwear and t-shirts filthy, in a cot of pus and bicycle parts. Knotting loneliness around your wrists in plastic wrap and chains. Like bowling in mud, seeking love in filth and stench. When small, they depleted your bones of joy with their gin, their wry belly hangovers. Living on white toast and some jelly, the caulk of brittle bones was all you usually had. I tried to make you bathe, wash off a layer of stain. Sorry I did not have the salve to scrape any deeper.

Rich Furman, PhD, is an assistant professor in the School of Social Work at Colorado State University. His poetry has been published or is soon to be published in Red Rock Review, Colere, Pearl, Hawai?i Review, Black Bear Review, The Journal of Poetry Therapy, Poetry Motel, Penn Review—well over 100 poems in nearly 100 literary journals. His first chapbook of poetry, of only average intent, was printed by Snorting Dog Press in 2002. He is currently seeking a publisher for his first full-length book, The Trotting Race of Time, 72 pages of poems which subtlety deal with the social conditions in Latin America, alienation and triumph.

[ furman@cahs.colostate.edu ]