June 2022
Bio Note: I am a recently-retired English Professor at SUNY at ERIE in Buffalo, N.Y. I have published one textbook of poetry prompts, three full-length and six chapbooks of original poetry, along with two CDs of poetry. I have appeared many times on Verse-Virtual over the years, and you can see my work at perrynicholas.com.
Father's Toast
In photographs, I touch your granite face,
To rub away those days you’d stumbled home,
Straight VO in your hand, with little grace
You lifted a mock toast to set the tone
Of strength and towering presence of a birch.
I stare at you, then conjure black and blue,
One small soldier on his silent march to church--
The way a father teaches, I assumed.
After long nights of roaming the district dark,
I used your branch to shield the blinding day
And carved a deeper sweetness in the bark,
Sought new mentors—cummings, Hemingway.
Here’s to you, who taught me how not to sing:
No nada y pues nada—but everything.
©2022 Perry Nicholas
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