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    man sitting on park bench

    Poem: An Apology for Vivian

    By Joseph Michael Fino

    November 28, 2016
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    • manny

      wow

    I am afraid, Vivian,
    that my words
    will find themselves alone,
    shivering cold on a park bench
    as evening slows,
    solemnly draped over the brownstones
    and the parking meters
    and over you, Vivian.

    I am afraid that poetry
    pays only the airy show:
    condensed breath firstly warm,
    thinning finely into evening’s hollow cold.
    Going unnoticed to the passers-by,
    does it go so to you, Vivian?

    I have seen your little body
    fraying in the wind of its cancer.
    I had hoped,
    I had tasked my words to mend you, but,

    Vivian, I am afraid
    that poetry arrives impotent,
    or, it seems, not at all –
    having lost itself in a metaphor,
    on a park bench,
    cold, somnolent
    and unemployed.

    Contributed By placeholder Joseph Michael Fino

    A member of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, Brother Joseph Michael Fino lives at St. Leopold Friary in Yonkers, New York.

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