"Disassociation"
The ex-wife calls drunk.
She had once been every drunk, everywhere.
Now she is a mere earful, a distraction.
You balance her softened speech
against a just-audible TV.
You plan to know, by God, (and PBS)
why Thoreau took to that cabin.
What were they saying; what
about casks of lime, about
the fashioning of shingles?
She says you’re like a Greek
or a sundial; no, you’re a big old cat
coiled with your big old paws
around your secrets. “Yep,” you say.
You’ll outwait her. You’ll be polite
as that scene opens up: the place
he’d gone that winter: Heywood Meadow
and the snow-laid cold, the air
that bites at your lungs, that
scours them with reckless joy.
Rip Underwood owned a dental lab for many years but has retired and wishes to devote his energies to finding outlets for his poetry – a passion he has indulged in for most of his adult life. In Austin, he has done volunteer work with deaf clients and with developmentally disabled residents at the Austin State School. He has also done service at the local women’s shelter and the Victim Services division of the Austin police department. His work has appeared in The Bloom, Volney Road Review, and Poetry Super Highway.
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