Andrew Cleary

Lessons Learned from The Voyage Out

Humans have their own pits if you eat them;

some smaller some stone. Boredom is no protection

from overconfident doctors. Marriage can save

the dissipated and kill the blameless.

Fathers may be forgotten, then remembered, and amount

to little consequence in the end; men who get by

on the achievement of their minds may wish

for the compulsion of physical strength through wine.

Decorate with furniture or with people

to find that books can hide the scuffs on either;

rather than know, you can pretend and live

on the memory of what you thought once.

An ocean separates in time as much as space; music

offers the escape falsely promised by the water

but fades, and life with it. Mountains can rise to spite

the sea, but the water has patience infinite.

Andrew Cleary lives in St. Paul. His poetry has previously been published in Sugar House Review, Willows Wept Review, and Lily Poetry Review.