Andrew Terhune is a poet, father, and proud representative of the displaced South in Chicago. As a Columbia College Chicago MFA candidate, he has published work in Columbia Poetry Review, in other journals, and right here on O Sweet Flowery Roses. The baby in the photo is not him, but may very well be related to him.
What's that? That's is daughter? Awww, cute, poetry website! Cute.
I Time Travel to Save You From So Many Stupid Things
and from where you sit
my face looks like squish.
There are a few things I’d like to keep from the unspoiled world,
but I’m caught in an accidental nap
which does you no good.
I know, briefly of things that belonged to
my mother.
Lovely. Unreadable.
The shag carpet is full of plastic crumbs,
which is not why they trimmed your bangs.
Colic. Without shadow
Mine is a face that sits, pressed hard
like the plastic shell in the quarter machine
outside the grocery store, under polished
pockets of human beings wandering, walking backwards
and if we are lucky, emptiness arrives
and you will crack open the shell and throw
my face and watch it slide down, down
the glass and like a tide rushing through me
I like how it feels.
Grasshopper Police
you’d pick the color,
and you showed me how to point my fingers like a gun
we’d shoot everything that was red.
You called it grasshopper police, lodged comfortably in the back of
our father’s Jeep Wagoneer. In the very back,
you remember – it had that false wooden paneling.
We did puzzles at the dining room table
in our first house on Crewe Street. I remember yellow walls – they almost
seemed stained and there were frilly edges on the tablecloth.
I couldn’t make anything fit, my small hands, as dull and useless as mittens.
You told me to ask Jesus for help.
Does your face still hurt from the rock I threw?
Walking the long walk from the bus stop, I was angry and you were there.
In Janesville
I am dressed like a clown.
What is this tender strangeness?
Temporary. Artificial heartbreak.
The warmth breathes over the theatre.
The concrete. The petal’s tear.
And your sour face again like a wilting flower.
What have I really done
and where do I begin?
