I’m not going to do a thing today.
Shoo-off the squirrels raising hell in the vegetables?
Let ‘em at it.
Re-read the last letter my father sent me?
No can do. I died it in a fire.

They’ve introduced a new brand of Budweiser into the stores
and now the old Budweiser is gone.
Leave it to the azalea to remind me
………….my father’s absence is the most obvious thing in the garden.

Perhaps this afternoon god’s grace
will plop over my fence,
her queer always and everywhere feeling
sequined-out in sun shimmer and
wind chime,
obliterating the day-time,
glittering me in beatific charms,
I’m the way she likes anyone left behind —
………….undeserving, falling

backward into a lawn chair,
dusk’s insurgent needle
mending the day’s last vein
………………………………..and here he comes.
.
.
.
Michael Martin is a poet, editor and filmmaker. He is the author of the poetry collection Extended Remark (Portals Press) and was recently a runner-up for Poetry International’s Cavafy Poetry Prize; in 2024 he was the winner of an Edgeworth Prize for Poetry. A new manuscript, BLOOD HOUNDS, includes recent poems published in, Denver Quarterly, EPOCH, American Journal of Poetry, Poetry Ireland, RHINO, Berlin Lit, Orbis & Salamander, among a bunch of others. He was the editor of the anthology, Rules of the Game: The Best Sports Writing from Harper’s Magazine and his award-winning poetry films have been recently screened at film festivals in Buenos Aires and NYC and can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/@martin_poetry-films.