Chris Forhan Poems

So this is what it's like when love
leaves, and one is disappointed
that the body and mind continue to exist,
...

Never put your personal spoon in the common jelly bowl.
Spread your napkin upon your lap. Do not grasp.
Eat what meat your fork can get to; the rest of the lobster must be given
...

The night sky's a black stretch limo, boss in the back
behind tinted glass. You could say that.

Down here's a dungeon, up there's the glittering
ring of keys in the sentry's fist. The self
...

She reads by the light of a guttering candle
and likes the feel of each page's gilt edge
as she lifts it slightly at the corner, readying
...

my father is having to leave the house
with delicacy, easing the dead bolt open
in the dark. The house exhales him.
I'm thinking of a driving lay-up, of a girl
...

Those overtime nights in the ice factory, eyeing gauges, greasing gears: that's one thing. And the hours of clarinet lessons.
All that rain that blathered on the patio, leaves
...

Night again, and I'm not impressed:
the blurred cedar, blowzy in her black dress,
the bat's manic acrobatics -- he tries too hard --
the hooligan raccoon routing in the brush,
...

Straight A's on arithmetic quizzes, your cheek gets ground
into the concrete down here, Sir. Thank You

for sending only Your smallest monsters to find me
and Your giant silence, thank You for that, within it
...