Frostwriting

Two Poems

by Amanda Hempel

Aubade in Iron January

In the shining silence of the morning of the night
a deer was spooked just at the foot of the wall, and leapt
silent as the moon but for the sharpness of its hooves.
It hung like breath in the air for a vast unseen moment,
its last, before everything became terrible and it screamed,
twisting its soft great belly on the spire as it spilled.
The wild onyx of fear glittered in its eyes till they dulled
and became a horror awaiting the late, frozen dawn.

 

——-

What Is Foolish

My grandfather doesn’t care about the broccoli on his plate.
We all know he’s dying—he knows he’s dying—
but my father still worries over his diet.
He has been harassing the nurses all week,
demanding food good for the cholesterol.

The following year I am given an intelligence test at school,
and the man asks me a series of questions like,
What is foolish about what this person did?
A judge sentences a criminal to be killed, then says
After this I hope you will have learned your lesson.

I think of my father hiding broccoli in the mashed potatoes,
the only thing his dying father wants to eat.
Of how my grandfather eats the broccoli for his son,
and of my father crying as he lifts the fork.

What is foolish? the man asks me, and I tell him all I know.