Seniority
I walk with my father,
my older steadiness
helping his old unsteadiness.
He slips a few times,
but my grip makes him
fall proof. “It never used
to be this hard,” he says,
refusing to walk even slower.
“Apple trees, I like apple
trees”—I don’t see any,
though I tell him we’ll pick
everyone of them clean later.
Back in the apartment he slides
into his favorite chair, caressing
the arms, staring into space—
what exactly does he see?
I bring him a blanket, but he
waves it off. “Just bring me an apple
for dinner. I could eat a horse.”
It’s the kind of logic I’ve come to love.
Tim Suermondt’s sixth full-length book of poems, A Doughnut and The Great Beauty of the World,” will be forthcoming from MadHat Press in 2021. He has published in Poetry, Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, The Georgia Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Stand Magazine, december magazine, On the Seawall, Innisfree Poetry Journal, and Plume, among many others. He lives in Cambridge (MA) with his wife, the poet Pui Ying Wong.