Hobnobbing with the Philosophers: How to Love Another Man’s

Detail from “The School of Athens”
a fresco by Raphael (1483 – 1520)
[Click image to call up
all published instalments]

By Maik Strosahl

I was digging through a box of memories when I found a scrap piece of paper with a handwritten poem scribbled on it.
    In my newspaper days, it was common for me to compose poems on the paper that was used to protect the freshly printed papers. On other occasions, any clean piece of cardboard could bear words that would surely have been lost if I didn’t get them out of my cluttered mind onto some sort of record.
    The one below was scribed on just such a piece of packaging and long ago forgotten.
    Until today.

The scrap of paper
I found buried
in a storage bin

    I sent it in a message to my daughter, who was the inspiration for the poem. I remember how friendly she was when I first met her mom, and how things changed. For a time, things were a bit difficult. The last lines on the sheet, which I did not keep in the poem, advised me to “Hold your (tongue) when she strikes you with words.” I believe I originally intended this piece to be a longer list of several tips to help a new step-father, but when I looked at the note I found, I liked the picture that the single stanza painted and felt it was complete.
    Things have improved through the years, and I enjoy when she calls or sends a message from way out west.
    This one is for all those men who come into the lives of young ones and try to help guide them on their journeys, even if these men weren’t entirely welcomed with open arms.
    And also, of course, this one is for Nicole.

How to Love Another Man’s

Always remember
that first smile,
offered when you
were only
a friend of her mother’s,
stopping by for dinner
and how it widened
when you put
a flower in her hair,
one she promised
to save forever,
though you found it
in the bottom of
the kitchen garbage
after you moved in.

Copyright © 2022 by Maik Strosahl Michael E. Strosahl has focused on poetry for over twenty years, during which time he served a term as President of the Poetry Society of Indiana. He relocated to Jefferson City, Missouri, in 2018 and currently co-hosts a writers group there.