Poetry: Selections from Scott F. Parker

bare arms

some people look away

when the needle goes in.

 

they always invite you 

to visit your happy place.

 

i like to watch. sometimes

i almost convince myself

 

that i can hear my vein puncture 

before the tube goes red.

 

and then the squeezing

and the saying i'm okay

 

and the classic rock playing

and chit chat with the phlebotomist

 

and the word phlebotomist

and time measured in volume.

 

don't think i'm a good person.

years ago, a friend and i

 

took regular trips together

"to bleed." we never talked 

 

about why but after every appointment

we scheduled one more.

 

what if i'm a mystery to myself

and what i want is for the mystery

 

to be drained dry or for the bond

of us to be literal like blood is literal?

 

i wouldn't call it a sacrifice

more like a practice that

 

according to the app on my phone

i've attended fifty-seven times.

 

my next appointment will be on halloween.

later that night i will dress as a skeleton

 

the same skeleton i have been before

and will be again soon enough.

Family Reunion

Brother and sister together again,

both of us stiff now with injury and age,

but running still, or something like it.

 

We would be unrecognizable 

to our younger, swifter selves,

who wouldn't look back if they could.

 

Fine for them, and fine for us

back here where everything is 

as it is supposed to be, where we are 

keeping the steady pace of decline.

when it speaks to me

the styrofoam halloween skull

lying by the side of the crib

in my younger son's room

 

i always forget it's a toy

as we’re saying goodnight

and i see it there, lifelike

 

when it speaks to me—

i kiss my son on the forehead

loving the reality of him

 

and quietly i whisper

to the skull, assuring us both

that i recognize the voice

creepy life

with no trees

and no rain

to water the trees

that don’t grow

 

this close to the sun 

smiling stupidly

worshipping

the light

 

that sees us so

far from home

Scott F. Parker is the author of How Big the Bigness Is: Oregon Essays and the editor of Conversations with Joan Didion, among other books. He teaches writing at Montana State University.