Dan Beachy-Quick: “Family Poem”

A flower today I was sitting green
flew between my face and the screen

I didn’t have to imagine my trouble
I don’t really like closing my eyes

Plato and puzzles I like opening
All the drawers that are closed

*

I worry when my stomach hurts
And worry others are the same as me

Growing old, regrets, worry life is
Too short, worry time is not enough

The bones of dinosaurs in the ground
Worry I don’t know about greatness

*

they’re nice, not always, all of them
the ones I love, I love

to sit in a chair made of string, love
the bright green shirt, love

when in the morning the earth hugs
every bed and all the stories are told
in questions: a bird? A duck?

*

It’s so obvious you don’t know what it is
A snake?

That right.
Now I see the eyes.

Dan Beachy-Quick is the author, most recently of, An Impenetrable Screen of Purest Sky and a critical study on John Keats, A Brighter Word then Bright: Keats at Work. He lives in Fort Collins, CO with his wife and two children, whose answers to the questions What do you fear?, What do you worry about?, What do you love? gave this poem its words.