Old Testament, New Testament
I felt you when I learned
my sister had been killed,
a blade jammed through
an artery while she slept.
After my high school
principal told me, your
hand ripped through my
torso and removed most
of a lung—breath made
rare, like any memory of
her high and soft laugh.
We were done for years.
When I was your son's age,
I sought you grudgingly
throughout my wife's
pregnancy, and when
the doctor cut sound to our
unseen boy's heart monitor,
and in the anxious quiet
before his first cry. But
when I did hear him,
I fell to my knees, awed.
Then you kindly pulled me
up by my collar and let me
hover inches above cold,
bleached tile before you
pushed me to my blood.
And we are all square.
Ekleksographia:
Wave Three
May, 2010
Poetry
Patrick Vogelpohl
Patrick Vogelpohl earned his M.A. in Creative Writing from Boston University. A former instructor at North Shore Community College and Quincy College, he was recently named Assistant Professor of Communication at Pacific Union College.