The Fights
Hugo and Wright like to watch the fights
on TV, jabbing along the way my dad did. They
were poets but they liked blood, too,
the way the heads sometimes snap back.
Reading about this the other day
I realized I don’t like this sort of thing anymore
and never did, really. I don’t know why
it’s taken me so long to see this. Hugo liked to tell
the story of how he and Wright once gave a ride
to a young woman after a reading.
She was trying to tell them only Jesus matters,
only Jesus, and after a while they stopped
the car and threw her out. They’d had enough
of that shit. I’m that woman.
Sitting in the Garden
If I bake a cake I am proud of the cake.
If I am given a cake,
I am grateful.
My problem with taking magic mushrooms
isn’t becoming one with the love and the light
but thinking we can do it whenever we want to.
And what about the rain? The labradoodle?
The man who flipped his dirt bike
only wants to walk again, and I can’t promise
he ever will, however hard he prays.
Rejoice always.
I am late to see a friend
and this is what he texts me:
I am sitting in the garden.
Chris Anderson is a Catholic deacon and an emeritus professor of English at Oregon State University. He has published a number of books, including three books of poetry. His latest book of poetry, You Never Know, was published by Stephen F. Austin State University Press in 2018.