Len Roberts

I blame it on him

when I'm a quarter-inch off
and the molding won't fit
no matter how hard I hammer it,
and when the outlet goes dead,
it's his fumbling hands
trying to sort green from white
   from black
while I shout at my wife
to call an electrician
even as the wires spark
   and short,
and it's him when I won't
   talk
for days after an argument,
his small fists pounding
   the dust
from the bag in the barn,
left jab to get it moving,
right cocked to knock it out,
   my old man
drinking with my hand on the
   patio after,
his lips singing my songs
till 2 a.m. and every neighbor's
   light off
but I'm still looking for more
   of something
like him those nights in Boney's
   Bar,
the red neon bull charging down
while he bought for the house
and came home with nothing,
   the two of us
sitting silent then at either end
of that table back on Olmstead Street,
our skin blue-cold as his heart-struck
   death within a few months,
neither willing to go get a coat,
trying not to blink, tapping our fingers,
   our feet,
waiting for the other one to start.

"I blame it on him" in APR, 2001.

Pear Tart

The mother called every day
   for a week
to ask this or that
for her son who was dying
   of a brain tumor
just discovered last month--
my wife the triáge nurse
   with a soft voice
that said Yes, we can send
   someone,
Just tell us what you want--

   till that night we sat
on the patio of Wassergass
eating crab cakes and sliced
   tomatoes
fresh from the garden,
our glasses brimmed
   with Merlot
that shimmered and reflected
   the sun-setting sky
where first the barn swallows
   and then the bats
cut their zigzag paths, that night
when the telephone did not ring

and we munched little squares
of the tart made with homegrown
   pears
we’d scooped the bees from,
their wings so sticky with sweetness
they plummeted to the ground
where the birds came to peck at them.

"Pear Tart" in Georgia Review, 2001

Spring Again 

Each spring she'd tell me
crocus, snowdrop, hyacinth,
make me bend to see more clearly
   whatever it was
so I would not cover it with mulch
   or yank it as a weed,
and I'd nod my head Yes, Yes, Yes,
repeating the type of leaf, the color
   of the stalk,
 
and now it's spring again and I'm
   hovering
with a shovel full of triple-ground
   mulch,
a beginning flower or weed by my foot,
   green tentacles widening out
as those other, fleshy ones did, taking
   root
to sprout and, in turn, sprout again,
 
clinging to any niche, any memory, any name
   till who she was
was gone, leaving me standing here
in steel-toed boots, staring
at what I think is a flowering plant
   I've mistakenly weeded out,
the What-do-you-call-it with broad, fuzzy leaves
   that, come June,
will be loaded with those tiny red hearts.

"Spring Again" in Atlanta Review, 2001

© All Copyright, Len Roberts.
All Rights Reserved. Printed By Permission. 

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