American Life in Poetry

To celebrate my 75th year, I’ve published a new book of poems, and many of them are about the way in which we come together to help each other through the world. Here’s just one:

Two

On a parking lot staircase

I met two fine-looking men

descending, both in slacks

and dress shirts, neckties

much alike, one of the men

in his sixties, the other

a good twenty years older,

unsteady on his polished shoes,

a son and his father, I knew

from their looks, the son with his

right hand on the handrail,

the father, left hand on the left,

and in the middle they were

holding hands, and when I neared,

they opened the simple gate

of their interwoven fingers

to let me pass, then reached out

for each other and continued on.