Boxing Lesson
Always talk things out
said my father
who’d left his bickering parents
in the dust, appointed himself
king of civility, duke of reasonable,
dedicated to renovating each squabble
into the polite exchange of opinions
oh so gently held.
Now, in this dank gym
I’m through talking,
gloves laced, mouthpiece in,
trip gong clangs, round one
the smug sonofabitch in red trunks
dancing out of his corner
he’ll show me how it’s done.
Feints, jabs, hooks
my guard’s up
but I can’t
block every hit,
punches smash
into ribs, kidneys,
cuts appear on my face
my arms weigh a ton
legs feel stuck in cement
breathing hurts
sweat blurs my vision
drips onto my gloves
making them slick so
when I try to hit him,
my blow slides off into
nowheresville.
Still, I keep going
And here’s the trick–
each time he throws one
he lays himself wide
open for just a second
so if I don’t backpedal
stay planted
stick fear
in my back pocket
my punches land
he gets his
it costs him,
this awful beating
he’s giving me,
how delicious to strike him
even once,
feeling flesh give
his grunt
of pain and surprise.
There’s nothing like it, dad,
nothing in this world.
When you return or
I fly to you in death,
after we’ve hugged and
wept and kissed
when the pain of our parting
has eased,
let’s settle the old scores
the gashes and ruptures
of love obstructed
gloves on
you take the first swing.
Dishes
Summer supper
bluefish, yellow squash
cold wine
how about
you dry
I’ll wash?
No, you work alone,
I see your brisk
practiced movements
shut me out.
How I hate
this needing you,
if just once
we could stand
elbow to elbow
while tap water runs hot
in the old white sink.
It’s warm tonight,
facing each other
the beach, the friendly sea
but a short walk
down cricket road.
Subway Car, Rush Hour
Here in the press of bodies
my love, long denied
flows towards mute strangers
brothers, sisters, prisoners
beneath the earth,
in the stale air we breathe each other,
I am at the center of life
but only now, here, do I grasp
the nature of our plight,
it’s pale beauty.
At the Pizzeria in Red Hook
Down by the docks
I get the table with the river view,
a window to see dreams through
to remember when the river
filled us
how you ached to convey the city’s life
in oil on stretched canvas
and I composed monochrome prints
of bridges, sun, dust,
trajectories of wheeling gulls,
white bubbling wakes of stubby ferries
we captured the imprint
of this vast burrow of stone, steel and glass
On fall evenings when the sounds
of charging water and distant trucks
mingled, while the lights of Manhattan
held steady, your face upturned,
that shrinking space
between our lips, groins,
we knew only of now and the next
day coming fast like a swift current.
You got sick
you said, “Don’t bury me in Maspeth
or Paramus.” Dutifully
I cast your ashes
over water so you’d be borne
round the island through
all the seasons that remain.
I see your river now
streaked with yellow, green
one hundred shades of blue,
bursting open with ships, bridges,
traffic, people with hopeful faces,
eyes wide to receive.
Matt Fried is a fiction writer, poet and psychologist. He received his MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. His short fiction has appeared in Pulphouse and 166 Palms: A Literary Anthology. He studied poetry with the poet Colette Inez. His CD of original songs, Days of Hope, can be heard on Apple Music, Spotify Pandora and YouTube. His psychological articles have appeared in the following publications: Psychiatry, Transformance and The Feldenkrais Journal. In addition to writing poems, He’s working on his first novel.
The Marbled Sigh 