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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"Krakow am See"<br />
(Krakow on <strong>the</strong> Lake)<br />
by George Thurman<br />
THIRD PLACE WINNER<br />
An old man, from his bench beside mine,<br />
mis<strong>read</strong>s my smile and approaches behind<br />
extended hand. Face thrust forward, a slight<br />
slouch, his eyes, blue and watery.<br />
His mouth, a river <strong>of</strong> hard consonants<br />
and glot-stopped vowels. Familiar words<br />
rush over me as he fingers his history,<br />
an accordion <strong>of</strong> pictures. His dead wife<br />
traced beneath <strong>the</strong> plastic. His son, double-tapped<br />
with trembling digit, lives in Hamburg.<br />
I try to speak, but my German, weak<br />
as his patience, yields a sigh, a refolding<br />
<strong>of</strong> his life. The breeze rattles through <strong>the</strong> lindens.<br />
Plovers pierce <strong>the</strong> surface <strong>of</strong> Lake Krakow.<br />
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