blue skies poetry

The ordinary can be like medicine
~ Alexie

When she pedals on, the sun
glints off her reflectors, calling back

to push me forward. Her hair
falling from a wild place, she leans

further back to show me a new trick,
a faint smear of peanut butter

tells her age, just play. I move
my legs in lazy loops to catch her,

chain derailed, she is crying.
I get dirty because it’s not a matter

of who cleans up, then give her
an oil smudge to perk her up.

I often wonder how we rearrange
ourselves to fit our grieving, how all

within me I feel your icy knives
heavy with allusions. Grief circling

there is little chance now
I could be like her, already moving

her legs toward the library, none
of her own blind spots to overtake her,

there she goes to the monkey section,
and picks one out that otherwise

never gets read. Nothing stops.
Those she treasures must all love her.

Is it any other way?

~ Sean Wiebe

Sean Wiebe is an assistant professor of language and literacy at the university of Prince Edward Island. His papers and poetry appear in a variety of journals and book chapters in the areas of the arts, teacher education and curriculum studies. Recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Journal of Educational Thought, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, Standards, JAAACS, The Windsor Review, Poetry Friends, Apt, Inscribed, Blue Skies, and Arabesques.

Filed under: Sean Wiebe by akublik Date 12 January, 2009