Some of the best poems you'll read - Perigee
Some of the best poems you'll read - Perigee
Some of the best poems you'll read - Perigee
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"The Sugaring"<br />
by Tom Sheehan<br />
My fa<strong>the</strong>r hid his diabetes<br />
in black shoe tops. At night<br />
he peeled <strong>of</strong>f bloody socks<br />
where veins found short circuiting.<br />
My mo<strong>the</strong>r bought white cotton<br />
socks by <strong>the</strong> dozens, band aid<br />
throwaways after work or Sunday<br />
<strong>best</strong>, after his heart pumped<br />
its way down long lean legs<br />
deep Nicaraguan paths had known,<br />
every baseball diamond Boston<br />
shook under red August skies,<br />
who-knows-what in Shanghai.<br />
Later on it went topsy-turvy<br />
in eyeballs' secret caves,<br />
refracting light into bones,<br />
porous humors going to sponge,<br />
into space where ideas lose out.<br />
When he sat to peel his socks<br />
from <strong>the</strong>ir red-wounding rounds,<br />
checking <strong>the</strong> salvage <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> day<br />
like a crow beside <strong>the</strong> macadam,<br />
or thumbed a brailled king <strong>of</strong><br />
hearts or a diamond five<br />
before he pegged me <strong>of</strong>f <strong>the</strong> board,<br />
I used to congratulate myself<br />
for not saying anything to him.<br />
He'd shuck <strong>of</strong>f such words just<br />
as he would an uncomfortable<br />
compliment: <strong>the</strong>y paid nothing,<br />
<strong>the</strong>y did nothing, <strong>the</strong>y sat on <strong>the</strong><br />
ear like old, old promises.<br />
Just piles <strong>of</strong> junk, he'd say,