Wouldn't Hold

Matthew Thorburn

Everything is made of shapes
made of loops and lines
Mother said and
my life began to unravel

the string of the world
running out of my pencil
she taught me to hold on
fingers’ pressure

against wood could blur
lead to shadow show
the slow darkening
a candle’s flicker making

strange angles of her face
she said it all fades
is lost to the horizon
she snuffed the flame and

I was falling I tried to
slide inside my letters
p’s open window
the low doorway of an h

but how could I know
words wouldn’t hold me
how could I know
they close so tight?

Childhood Music

Old Schmidt clacks
two sticks to tell
his sheep it’s time for bed
he smells like a barn

Mother says blue overalls
always muddy always
something filthy
in his hands a hoe or rake

a snake a dead bird
a wiry dog trots alongside
dirty as he is
tin bell around its neck

so weird familiar music
comes drifting back
bark jingle mutter clack
and fades away

they were a little family
it’s true it’s time
he calls time to go back
over the hill into the barn

where he did sometimes
drowse beside them
where he was happiest
there in the dry hay

the sagging gray barn
they locked up they
burned down o

Matthew Thorburn

2019

Come Back to Tell Us

Dusk in August—
which means nearly
nine o’clock here, deep
in the heart of central
Jersey—and the deer
step out to graze
the backyards. They tear
each yellowy red
tulip cup, munch up
rhododendrons
and azaleas. Fifty
years of new houses
have eaten into
their woodland, leaving
only this narrow strip
of trees along the trickly
stream that zigzags
between Route 9
and Lily’s mom’s
backyard. The deer rise
from the mist, hooves
clicking on asphalt, a doe
and a buck, his antlers

Matthew Thorburn

2016

Poems

Wouldn't Hold

More by this poet

Childhood Music

Come Back to Tell Us

These Days

Poems

Page submenu block

Wouldn't Hold

More by this poet

Childhood Music

Come Back to Tell Us

These Days

Newsletter Sign Up