Two Poems

Eric Torgersen

Come Back

Prodigal thoughts long gone from your head come back.
Paths you turned from, fearing where they led come back.

You cling to present loves as old desires
like children crying to be fed come back.

Those with whom you bargained, plotted, wrestled,
did or did not go to bed come back.

Those who never knew how much they mattered,
those you might have helped but hurt instead come back.

The falsest, truest, kindest, cruelest, maddest
words you ever wrote or said come back.

All the brilliantly improvised explosive
charges you placed in the road ahead come back.

The Year of Many Small Cuts, the years of learning
to hide the places where they bled come back.

Faceless figures hovering in mist
tinged with every shade of dread come back.

Don't look, Eric look don't listen listen
it's the tireless calling of the dead: Come back.

***

Eric

The surface is calm, but we all know what's below it, Eric.
Fuck the forecast. Get in the boat and row it, Eric.

That air of charming helplessness was fine
back then, but you were supposed to outgrow it, Eric.

The men in cheap dark suits are at the door.
You have no identity card. They'll want you to show it, Eric.

Somehow you caught the ball, and everyone's watching.
Don't just stand there. Hurry up and throw it, Eric.

You've had a drink and a bit of rest in the shade—
one row left, and nothing to do but hoe it, Eric.

Every fabric fades in summer sun,
but yours is tearing. Who will sew it, Eric?

The car careens along and the brakes are shot—
think you can find a way to slow it, Eric?

You of so little faith in yourself as a man,
where do you get your faith in yourself as a poet, Eric?

 

 

Eric Torgersen's ghazals are from a collection to be called In Which We See Our Selves: American Ghazals. Others have appeared, or will, in New Ohio Review, New Letters, 32 Poems, Zone 3, Pleiades, Iron Horse Literary Review, Solo Novo, Cafe Review, Third Wednesday and The Ghazal Page. A collection of non-ghazals, Heart. Wood. , will be published in 2012 by Word Press.



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