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Hopefully, the One Millionth and One Poem About Canadian Snow; Middle Aged Love Poem; Passing Into Darkness by Richard LeDue



Hopefully, the One Millionth and One Poem About Canadian Snow

 

It's okay not to know

who Al Purdy was.

 

He died

over twenty years ago,

 

and there's a professor

somewhere (let's say Toronto),

 

who would argue against me,

except they're too busy

 

reading the morning paper,

pretending the digital age isn't

 

turning dog ears

into another endangered species.

 

It's okay not to know

Canadians have written

 

thousands of (or are millions more impressive

for the five Americans who'll read this?)

 

poems about snow.

The most interesting ones seduced

 

by the space between snowflakes,

where bloodshot midnights

 

propose to the empty side of the bed

until there's nothing left

 

but to settle for sleep,

 

and they say Purdy was

an assisted suicide,

 

printed in an article long after

some of his poems went

 

out of print,

leaving a discarded “A Handful of Earth”

 

to lie on my shelf

like a lazy relative

 

I am too polite to question

about how much a poet earns.



Middle Aged Love Poem

 

At best, this poem is a broken sonnet,

while at worse, it helps us sleep,

like hugging a pillow at 1 AM,

only to wake up,

noticing the empty side of the bed,

yet still believing love

a tidal wave

instead of a toilet flush.



Passing Into the Darkness

 

Porch lights left on for no one

should make us smile

at the night sky,

even if we're scared to hope

for the stars to fail

at outshining a lover's stare

or at least for an angel feather

to tickle our retinas,

but instead we just pass by

trying not to think

about closed eyes,

with us on the wrong side,

and locked doors

everyone believes in

too much.

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