Sample Poems by Jeff Knorr

Under a Brick Orange Moon

I’ve never been much good with stars.
But I search tonight
this dark sky pulling itself west.
I look for Orion’s belt you showed me years ago,
for the bear, because I call our son Osito,
and hope that across this canyon of night
our eyes might turn in the same direction,
reflect, become a moment of gravitational love.

This field of stars winnows across the sky,
leaps forward under clouds like wild horses.
In an instant I feel you,
a ripple rising from deep, slow water, and we meet
under the low branches of our cherry tree
shifting against this autumn night.

A Winter Night a Thousand Miles Long

In the failing light
of evening, night

comes on for both of us.
I wonder if you remember me,

see me in dreams, if your crying
is for food or like a calf bawling

for its mother, separated in a field?
I know some days ahead, I’ll hold you,

you’ll know me as yours
like we shook on it, a deal

that can’t be broken. And we’ll wrap ourselves
around us like snow clinging to the trees.

Waiting on Family Court

I know little of lawyers and courts.
The slow wait for papers processed
is like hoping for rain in summer.

So today I paint your room
and figure you’ll be home soon.
I think of you in a crib a country away

and there’s a drip in the door
needs brushing out. A thousand
horse hairs slide like skates

over the baseboard. I sweat
in new paint, go back and
work it in so I am in your wall,

my secret way to watch you sleep
when we’re all under the thumb of night.
Later I’ll slip on the ladder,

leave half a hand print high
on the wall to almost hold you on days
when I will work and you’ll play.

In the corner behind the rocker
I sneeze and leave a lash in tacky
paint so I can read to you, watch,

tell you stories in summer nights
after grandfather’s slick-handled
brushes are hung, away on their nails.

The Only Time We Lost Our Son

The rain has finally cleared
this morning, leaving the streets
shining black mirrors, broken
clouds above, the sun working
through trees. And we’re outside now
with my folks who flank the open doors of their car,
our son waving from his grandmother’s arms.
Steam runs around my ankles, unseasonably
warm, I catch the side of your face,
the flower-red sweater becomes the bougainvillea
against the old Guatemalan house. The dog’s distant barking
snaps just beyond the wrought iron gate.
I am so far from this steamy street;
my mother says something that falls dead as leaves
because we were in our other country
alive as water on that December morning
the orphanage director took our son,
the light waving away through the mimosa branches,
the dog snapping, our boy’s small arms pushing at her.
And while she tried to calm him you just leaned on me
broken as deadfall firs, cloudburst crying.
He is framed in that back window, pictured,
the way a leveling storm leaves a print,
waving, as he is now from his grandma.
The going away doesn’t fade beyond the closing clouds;
the leaving keeps coming like weather
that has settled in for an entirely long season.