Peter Makuck: Two Poems

A Sense of Fall
 
 
Every summer day was the last I thought,
        even before my parents were gone,
when cicadas sewed in a frenzy on tiny machines,
        clicking and droning
as if stitching one last tapestry in the street oaks
        and so empty themselves to perfection,
their varnished bodies fallen
        here and there on sidewalks,
their wings a delicate filigree of veins 
        made from the air of the lost.

--

High School English


Tony and I both had Miss Stucky.
She was going on about Keats one day,
how A thing of beauty is a joy forever—
then saw the empty desk, remembered, 
and sent me to the Boy’s Room
to see why Tony was taking so long.
 
He was standing next to a urinal 
and told me to watch, then tilted 
his head back, plugged one nostril, 
and honked out a snot rocket
that stuck to the white wall.  Every time
we laughed the yellow/green got longer.

My first art mural, said Tony.
And we laughed again before returning
to Miss Stucky—that moment
not even close to a thing of beauty, but 
lasting anyway for all these years.

Peter Makuck (1940-2023) was the author of numerous collections of poetry, including six from BOA Editions: Mandatory Evacuation (2016), Long Lens: New & Selected Poems (2010), Off Season in the Promised Land (2005), Against Distance (1997), The Sunken Lightship (1990), and Where We Live (1982). Makuck is also the founder of Tar River Poetry, where he served as editor for nearly thirty years. 

Copyright 2020 Peter Makuck