Tim Suermondt

Friday Night

He’s drunk.
She’s drunk.
I’m not.

To them the world
is perfect.
To me the world
still spikes with trepidation.

He staggers, slowly.
She tries to tip toe
along the curb.
I watch them in case
they need help.

I do know what a perfect
world is capable of.

While I Shovel Snow

It turns to late Spring—an apartment
on St. Fabulous where a model,
   wearing only yellow underwear,

clicks off the television, lights
up a cigarette and decides she’ll
   call her boyfriend later.

She sits on the couch, flips through
the lingerie catalogue, running
   an index finger over her lips.

She knows nothing of shoveling snow
and I envy her ignorance—the very kind
   that keeps her beautiful.

 

Tim Suermondt has poems coming out in Plume Poetry Journal, december magazine, North Dakota Quarterly, The White Stag Journal. Mad Hat Lit and Red Fez. He lives in Cambridge (MA) with his wife, the poet Pui Ying Wong.