a poetry collection by Charlie Brice
Phaedo
In memory of Richard L. Howey
Fifty years.
Fifty years of your wisdom.
And now this card that only I can write.
The nuns told me that I had no chance
to succeed in college. Your mother is wasting
her money sending you to college, they chortled.
But you liked the questions I asked in your philosophy class.
And now this card that only I can write.
You invited me to your Friday night soirees.
I met the philosophy and English faculties
while on your living room floor drunk on Burgandy,
erudition, and the cultural baptismal font
proffered by those heady evenings.
And now this card…
You taught me that the unexamined life
is not worth living and that, sometimes,
the same can be said for the examined life.
This card…
You saw a spark in my eighteen-year-old psyche—
an ember that might fan the flame of knowledge.
You gave me the hope I needed to excel.
And now this…
These last few years we spoke twice-a-week
on the phone. You with your congestive heart
failure, round-the-clock oxygen, and your sense
of humor. You always insisted on telling me
a joke before we hung up.
This card…
It was always a dirty joke, which I loved, especially
coming from a man with dual appointments
in the philosophy and biology departments.
You were a man for all seasons,
and your season has ended.
And now this card that only I can write to Adri,
your wife of sixty-five years. On its cover
two words: Forever Remembered.
Our Uninvited Guest
I hate that smirk you wear when you’ve won. Oh yes,
you’ve taught us lessons! Many, many, lessons.
Judy and I might try to have a simple conversation
about the garden—how lucky we are that
our Monk’s Hood blooms in late October, or how
the roses survived even a November frost,
but you flex your skeletal chest, suck the air out of our joy,
and kick Judy with the pointed toe of your festering boot.
“I won’t be interrupted!” you scream, and squeeze
Judy’s hands, ankles, and back until she cries.
You are our uninvited guest, a tyrant worse that a ne’er-do-well
friend who has overstayed his welcome. We can’t get you to leave.
What judge will issue your eviction notice?
To which court do we apply?
We’ve spent thousands on drugs and gismos—packs we heat
in the microwave, ointments and salves, battery powered socks
and gloves, massage machines, heating pads we cart around
to friends’ houses. Judy takes a dozen pills a day to make you
so uncomfortable you’ll leave. But you won’t budge. You won’t
be happy until she’s dead, even if that means you die with her
Cheyenne in Winter
When the percolator began its rough grumble on
those winter days, the kitchen smelled like kindness.
What a wonder to watch the boiling water change
color as it surged up in the tiny glass knob of the lid.
We’d sip coffee and lick frosting off our cinnamon
buns and watch through the kitchen window as cars
careened over snow-slathered Foyer Avenue. Drivers
navigated uncertainly: Where did the street end
and the sidewalk begin? Some wound up on a neighbor’s
lawn, or sidewise in a driveway. Fun to watch the
confusion mixed with consternation on the faces
of those drivers whose cars became sleds.
My job was to start mother’s Cadillac in our driveway,
warm it up for the trip to school for me and work for her.
There were days when the caddy’s engine was too cold
to start, days when it only shivered when I turned the key.
On those days we split an extra cinnamon bun, bothered
the percolator for a little more bean juice, and waited
for AAA to arrive, grateful for the extra minutes
Cheyenne’s winter granted us.
Charlie Brice won the 2020 Field Guide Poetry Magazine Poetry Contest and placed third in the 2021 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Prize. His sixth full-length poetry collection is Miracles That Keep Me Going (WordTech Editions, 2023). His poetry has been nominated three times for the Best of Net Anthology and the Pushcart Prize and has appeared in Atlanta Review, The Honest Ulsterman, Ibbetson Street, The Paterson Literary Review, Inspired Magazine, Salamander Ink Magazine, and elsewhere.
The Carried Away 
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