A Friend Says He’s Getting
Over His Divorce

 

He says he’s loving again
the ocean ruggling outside his old
clapboard house—you have to admire
someone who uses ruggling,
even if it’s probably not a word.

He does seem to be making progress—
his cheer is genuine, but I wish things
could be re-set as if they hadn’t happened
and I bet he does too.

There’s still enough beauty in the day
and I should invite my wife to stroll
with me through the park—catch a few
last rays of sun on her jeans, hold her hand
from one entrance to exit.

 

 

 

Pizza on the Riviera

 

Let the world fool
and hurt us again,

but not today.

The pie bubbles
just like my heart,

and I don’t care
if saying “I’m in love with love”

makes everyone else wince.

Sailboats swirl on the nearby
plates and Picasso dips a brush

in my glass of beer, whetting it
for another run at a masterpiece.

I don’t want to ever leave,
for anything.

 

 

 

Nike Never Hesitates

after Zbigniew Herbert

The wind skip ropes through her hair
as she bends to secure a sandal strap,
saying “Let’s walk even further”

and we do, going on so far
that the present becomes history
and the future, surely, only a bend away.

She becomes more beautiful
with every step, while mine keep
reminding me of my commonplace.

She wears a shiny silver watch
that she ignores to check—“What’s
time,” she says, “without us anyway?”

Standing at the Entrance to Chartres

With my METS cap intact—
A symbol of devotion the apostles

And martyrs here will appreciate.
A woman wears a summer blouse,

MOULIN printed across her breasts,
Her face flushed with a beautiful awe—

I can’t wait to follow her inside.

 

 

 

Tim Suermondt is the author of two full-length collections of poems: TRYING TO HELP THE ELEPHANT MAN DANCE (The Backwaters Press, 2007) and JUST BEAUTIFUL (New York Quarterly Books, 2010.) His third collection ELECTION NIGHT AND THE FIVE SATINS will be published early in 2016 by Glass Lyre Press. He has poems published and forthcoming in Poetry, The Georgia Review, Prairie Schooner, Ploughshares, Blackbird, Bellevue Literary Review, PANK, North Dakota Quarterly, december magazine, Plume Poetry Journal and Stand Magazine (U.K.) among others. He lives in Cambridge (MA) with his wife, the poet Pui Ying Wong.