Splendor

Were I a pharaoh
I would take with me
into the next world: these sheets
that will still hold our smell
because we have sweated into them
together for so many years

the loose-woven wrap you love
for how it reflects warmth back
down into rounded shoulders, dry bones,
lends you tender protection

the thin cup my mother used
when she sat at the kitchen table
to look at backyard sparrows
as she drank hot tea slowly

the J. C. Higgins bicycle I rode into winter
beside Lake Michigan –  for its lust,
clean lines and unconquerable bravery

certain books - Blake for sure, albums — Miles, more
a fountain pen like the ones we used in grade school
whose ink bled tiny ingots of lake-blue into paper
paper, a good quantity of paper

hiking boots with leather rough along the tongue and ankles
wrinkled, reformed by my form, but with a sheen
lacquered across the toes, still true and arched there

and of course, Tucker — the faithful —
made quick again, and at our feet
as you begin to twitch and rouse
within your bed of gauze.
I will place that shawl back over your shoulders.

Tucker will bound toward the doorway
into what I do not know except that
Tucker will be hungry for it, all of it
and we will be hungry for it, all of it
having taken with us
such splendor as love can provide.

Ed Ruzicka’s third book of poems, Squalls, was released in March. Ed’s poems have appeared in the Atlanta Review, the Chicago Literary Review, Rattle, Canary and many other literary publications. Ed, who is also the president of the Poetry Society of Louisiana, lives with his wife, Renee, in Baton Rouge.