PIERRE MINAR

EMERGENCE

Black flock turns 

Fluid dynamics; my son 

Sometimes skips 

Sometimes gallops the empty

Bike path at cold dusk

To Central Market

We speak of gummi worms and hamburger,

Articulating with lips and breath

“Ham. Burger.” pronounced 

with a second silent H 

Forgive us blocking

The freezer aisle choosing 

Our preferred potato

We loop the produce; he picks

A yellow apple; “I’ve never had

One of those before” I 

Say, echoing the mindless speech

Of my mom; I feel like a cartoon

golden retriever licking the TV

High tension wire rampart 

A thousand grackle sentries

Line the walk home; off 

The Internet it’s still 2005; 

Out here in the world

“Freeze warning,”

A condominium sign says.

I stop to film the birds 

To send you

“Where’s Mama?”

“She’s having a girls’

Weekend”; Love morphs,

Astonished I’m astonished;

What did I miss? 

“1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, Nine, 10”

[lilt higher on “nine”]

I sing, more interested than him, 

Vintage Sesame Street, he watches 

I sizzle sweet potato fries, 

George Foreman the meat;

The birds’ll’ve kept coming;

I rely on the phone 

To focus and adjust;

Changeable gift from changeable giver; 

Real bird, gummi worm; skipping backward

Under electricity; Nazgûl wail

Of empty light rail

Breathing, trembling, stumbling

The night runs out 

Tomorrow I’ll still be a father

OIKOS

Windshield’s filthy

Wiper fluid won’t come

Take time for what matters 

Reside at the edge 

Anxiety will 

Be your father, doubt your mother 

I ease off; nobody wants 

This household 

The sun forgot

It’s ambition, the moon, 

Vibrates I walk 

Steady home groceried. On Saturday, time

Gets longer, always has. 

They say from your own point of view

The middle of life is at seven 

Ordinary golden age 

You’re new so 

Mastery still seems possible

Hubris doesn’t cloud 

One so young. 

OUR HEARTS ARE UNITED

“Ambition” sounds like medicine 

I’m a Duraflame Boy Scout 

Smell stores memory 

When I asked you about it

you panicked I panicked 

What a January thing to say 

We get so used 

to editing deleting, unsending 

Words have consequences 

“He’s just acting out”

A weighty “just”

Just then the heater clicks on

We weren’t made to live in boxes

America is camping

A dry run of civilization 

We weren’t made at all

It takes time to adjust 

What a Cretaceous thing to say

Time is a construct 

Maybe she’ll text me back 

There, I am wanted 

Like Hector, I can fight another day

PIERRE MINAR was born in Lebanon and grew up in New Jersey. His work has appeared in Hobart, Flora Fiction, a collection called Giant Robot Poems by Middle West Press, and a chapbook called Transmissions From My Yearning Chair by Bottlecap Press. When he is not writing poems he investigates Medicare fraud by big companies. He lives in Dallas with his son.