Manny Grimaldi

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I feel like a drink in the morning when I think you’re gone

which never comes. You call eventually. This

is stuff of school-child fantasy, but now

I am beginning to love you, it’s not about keeping you.

The abandoned bridge, the peeling bark adorned by scarcely

a flower recall the single place

I never knew, where Providence hid. After

burying myself in ink that winter, glad for the divorce, taking

a two-lane highway in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, snowfall on the quivering

thin, naked trees adorning a creek, I follow to Cinema Regal Manor

to nod off in reclining chairs. You watch a film about imperialism

and desert sunsets and I snore—at parting; the wind a hush

and the trees cease their rustling, not a moment noticed,

then home I walk alone at evening.  Arrived,

I sit down at my desk to write you, and I wonder what

you would think of my eggs and sausage, made with fennel and dill. I wonder

if those spices agree with you, if my toilet bowl would repulse you,

if you’d know what to do with my sprayer bidet.

Two years ago, I startled at water humming by the Ohio at Turner’s Place,

standing on a ramshackle, tumble-down pier with my friend who spoke clarity

so gently as to never disturb the great happening joyous

day.  He delighted in all perplexing beings

and I wanted to cry for shame. I drank within a week.

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Manny Grimaldi writes books for fun for the unforeseeable future and is quite content with that arrangement. He is native to Louisville with roots in Spain, where he lived great chunks of his childhood. Manny is managing editor for Yearling by Workhorse Writers, enjoys the job of curating incoming poets’ work, providing feedback, and the camaraderie of laboring with a great team. He has a book release scheduled with Finishing Line in November 2024.

Next Poet: John Ganshaw