Painting a Boston Noir
No amount of brushstrokes
can cover over the ubiquitous brown,
not even by inserting street lamps
and a yellow bird flying between them.
A man, his head down, is walking
one of those streets, trying to feel whole,
adroit in the world once again, the neon
sign of the donut shop with its missing
letter hanging like a failed omen, a regret
that will haunt the seeker who expected
at least the crumbs of a miracle. The moon
isn’t painted in, tomorrow night perhaps.
TIM SUERMONDT is the author of five full-length collections of poems, the latest Josephine Baker Swimming Pool from MadHat Press, 2019. He has published in Poetry, Ploughshares, The Georgia Review, Prairie Schooner, Stand Magazine, Galway Review, Bellevue Literary Review, and Plume, among many others. He lives in Cambridge (MA) with his wife, the poet Pui Ying Wong.
Twyckenham Notes 