When your chips are down, when your highs are low: Sharon Olds.
I see them standing at the formal gates of their colleges,
I see my father strolling out
under the ochre sandstone arch, the
red tiles glinting like bent
plates of blood behind his head, I
see my mother with a few light books at her hip
standing at the pillar made of tiny bricks,
the wrought-iron…i just taught this poem. i wept like a little baby the first time i ever read it. which is exactly how i choose the poems i teach.
Shit I’m crying too. God dammit. (That’s how I would choose which poems to teach, too.)
