a poem by michael broder

Nursing Home: Courtyard 


These blossoms mark this time
as the people here mark time;
it is sculptural, like a figure carved out of stone,
but we cannot see the shape of a life
from within a life,
so we watch the blossoms,
how the buds swell, the flowers unfold,

spread, spread beyond their limit,
and then the petals begin to drift,
as strength begins to drain from these limbs,
memory from its mysterious repository,
blood slows, fails to warm these fingertips,
the river a dusty bed, sand blowing
in its parched mouth, drifting,

wind rasping in the brown leaves,
papery veil stretched over the cheekbones,
pink toothless gums, hair like straw,
crevices lining the skin,
Paleolithic gullies,
the soul echoing in the canyon,
clinging to the prison of the ribs.






Michael Broder's first collection, This Life Now, is out this spring from A Midsummer Night's Press. Michael has a BA in Comp Lit from Columbia, an MFA in Creative Writing from NYU, and a PhD in Classics from CUNY. His poems, essays, and reviews have appeared in BLOOM, Court Green, Columbia Poetry Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, Classical World, and other journals, as well as in the anthologies This New Breed, My Diva, Divining Divas, Rabbit Ears, and Ancient Obscenities. He has taught at Brooklyn College, Hunter College, Queens College, York College, and the Graduate Center (all CUNY), as well as at NYU, Montclair State University (Montclair, NJ) and The University of South Carolina (Columbia, SC). He lives in Brooklyn with his lawfully wedded spouse, the poet Jason Schneiderman, and numerous cats, both feral and domestic. You can find out more about his beings and doings at www.mbroder.com.