A Not-so-Failure in 2 Parts

By CRALAN KELDER

excerpt from the ongoing Failures Diary 

 

i go to pick up my kid

at his crèche

that’s a fancy european word

for daycare

 

instead of bundling him away

i slump a seat on the floor

in an alcove-like space

 

and look out at snow in the garden

it’s quite peaceful

a poem starts composing in my head

the other parents’ voices

begin to fade away

 

my son is playing

with another boy

going up and down

up and down a slide

built into the wall

laughing laughing

 

his friend comes over

grinning,

right up close,

pokes me hard in the cheek,

says

who are you?

 

 

**

 

water freezes in the air

we call it snow

 

people in the next room are talking talking

making a racket racket, I sit still

as their voices begin to fade

 

and become inanimate,

a chair or something,

it feels a bit like being stoned

 

outside through the window

i notice wind

exploding small puffs

of snow from trees

 

the window makes observation

of cold effortless

I must remember to look up

‘the invention of glass’

 

                                    –Amsterdam, January 2013

 

 

Cralan Kelder is the author of Give Some Word. His work has recently appeared in Zen Monster, Poetry Salzberg Review, and VLAK, among other publications.

Photo from Flickr Creative Commons