David Dodd Lee

After the Golden Age

There are better memories
than ones of getting hit on the side
of the head by a football
in winter
There are better ways to grow old
Cement poured over rebar
silicone calcium aluminum shells
smoothed over with a finishing trowel
The people who spend
days in the library
The people who without my regard
continue unrelentingly
to focus
These are my heroes so unmoved
are they as the basements flood
as the black water pours forth from
the subway entrance with a capsized
umbrella rising up past the second story windows
I think it’s the clownfish
that with the delicacy of a mother
rubbing ointment into the chest
of a boy with a cold disarms
the sea urchin by removing its quills
with its bony mouth
before it devours the fleshy body
The water covers the leather furniture
Some houses have cars parked in front
of them some do not
Newspapers collect at the head of the driveway
This is not indicative of human presence either way
It’s been such a long ten years
some of the flags at half-mast or
in other cases paired with other flags—
flags everywhere
so many flags

________________________________________________________________________________________

David Dodd Lee is the author of eleven books of poetry, including Animalities (Four Way Books, 2014) and Orphan, Indiana (University of Akron Press, 2010), as well as a forthcoming book of collages, erasure poems and original poems, entitled Unlucky Animals. His poems most recently have appeared in Guesthouse, Copper Nickel, Triquarterly, Thrush and in Salamander. In 2020, his short story, “Hawks,” was selected for inclusion in the annual Best Short Fictions anthology, published by Sonder Press. He writes and makes visual art and kayaks in Northern Indiana, where he lives on the St. Joseph River. He is Associate Professor of English at Indiana University South Bend, where he is also Editor-in-Chief of 42 Miles Press, which will soon be publishing the literary magazine The Glacier.