Drawing by Susan C. Price
Grades
By Eric Meub
Grades
By Eric Meub
[Originally published on December 10, 2016]
Above the chair’s arm and her perfect card,
his glasses mirror back a blank regard.
She seeks for eyes behind those disks of light,
gold-edged, and lensed in brilliant newsprint white.
He only speaks into the paper, “We
won’t talk about this—” one hand lifting free
to extricate a sail-like page, the other
shaking out the wrinkles, “—with your mother.”
He takes a puff and trains his focus on a
stock result, taps ash from the Havana,
“—or your brother,” as he tries to tease
the fold. “You can’t have all the victories.”
He blows the smoky air and flares a lip.
The silken tendrils rising from the tip
of the cigar now smoking in its tray
entwine the fingers shooing her away.
| Copyright © 2018 by Susan C. Price & Eric Meub Eric Meub, architect, lives and practices in Pasadena, the adopted brother of the artist, Susan C. Price. They respect, in their different ways, the line. |
Eric places words in a poem like a Bobby Fischer placed men on a chessboard.
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