Everything time I think
I might be getting somewhere

in terms of metaphysical
wisdom, I remind myself that it

took decades before
I realized why my mother

used to mash up my Banquet
pot pies so that the brittle

wreath of crust found itself
mixed in gravy, a product

surely of some five-year-old
tantrum, the simplest

of gestures, hardly what counts
on my fortieth Christmas Eve

without seeing whatever
it takes to make you

blind, yes, but the kind
of blind where you don’t care

because there’s something else
you lack the words to say.
 
 
~ ~ ~

Michael Meyerhofer’s fifth book of poems, Ragged Eden, is forthcoming from Glass Lyre Press. He’s also the author of a fantasy series and serves as the Poetry Editor of Atticus Review. His work has appeared in Rattle, Hayden’s Ferry, Ploughshares, DIAGRAM, Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, and other journals. For more information and an embarrassing childhood photo, please visit troublewithhammers.com.