Poetry Magazine
Caned
A stick, pared clean—no, a silver-topped
bamboo-with-dagger, class doubling as club,
the advantage of gravity lifted high
overcoming the disadvantage of poking ahead.
He demurs. Weakness either way.
A man should crush opponents with a word.
Naive, I muse, at your age. A cane
replaces the sole’s sensors, bolsters them.
Balance is a matter for the unbalanced,
he says, all nuance, accusing me, Lear-lover,
of too much. The earth is now close, I tell him.
A sharp look. I’ll walk, he says, without.
Source: Poetry (November 2011).
Biography
Terese Svoboda’s fifth book of poetry is Weapons Grade (University of Arkansas Press, 2009).
Poem Categorization
SUBJECT Living, Growing Old
Poetic Terms Free Verse
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