Ed Robson
Ed Robson is a retired psychologist, new MFA, heart attack survivor, and poetry slam champion who lives in Winston-Salem, NC and winters when he can in Guatemala. He writes poetry, fiction, drama, and essays, restores neglected houses with his wife, and loves cooking for his friends. His poems have appeared in Prune Juice, Fleas on the Dog, Right Hand Pointing, Heart, and other journals.
Easy read of the poems in the images above:
FRESH COFFEE
The night crew would be finished with their side work—
salt and pepper shakers filled, kitchen drawers restocked,
every bit of stainless steel bleach-water wiped—
but despite sore feet, backs, shoulders, smiled-out faces,
everyone stood up a little straighter
when Doctor S arrived at five-fifteen.
He always came alone, negotiating both
stiff glass doors unaided. He’d greet us
with a buoyant grin, calling out for all to hear,
“Fresh coffee!” then begin his rocking,
lurching, trembling pilgrimage along
the aisle between the counter and the booths.
He had a cane but seldom used it, balance
adequate most days despite his twisted spine
and spindly limbs. No one asked the name
of his affliction, even when he strained to form
his words—we knew he had much better things
to talk about. To pity him was inconceivable.
We’d have a pot all ready to start brewing
when we saw him at the outer door, and by the time
he reached his booth, the second from the end,
and eased his once tall frame gingerly into his seat,
before he had his glasses on and Morning Advocate
opened to the editorials and letters page,
someone would be setting cup and saucer down
in front of him and pouring. Doctor S
would take a long sniff, then look up,
eyes mirthfully alight within a craggy
and imperfectly shaved face, sigh loudly
and exclaim, “Fresh coffee! Let the day begin!”
I AM NOT HURT
I am not hurt; that’s what’s important, right?
“Nothing bruised except my dignity,”
I tell the neighbor standing in his yard,
whose name I think I used to know, the only
witness to my fall. I wave and grin
to reassure him. He smiles, but his eyes
betray concern I understand too well;
he, too, is past the age of brushing off
the worry with the dust. Self-consciously
refusing to inspect my hands while he
is watching, I resume my walk, but scan
sensorium for burn of lacerations,
telltale twinge of muscle strain in wrists
or ankles. Not this time, though. Systems all
are reading nominal—repeat: I am
not hurt. But on the status board, one light
still isn’t turning back to green, and no,
it isn’t just my dignity. Something much
closer to the heart, less easily
restored or overridden shifted in
the instant that preceded looming asphalt.
Some part of my awareness did not wait
for feet or eyes to ascertain what flaw
in surface—ridge or fissure, rock or random
artifact of human manufacture—
was to blame, but simply registered
yet one more interruption in the beat
of shoe-soles striking pavement. No excuse
is relevant: that which for sixty years
I trusted is beginning now to fail.
The mark of life is verticality.
Against the tyranny of entropy
we strive to stand, we will ourselves upright.
The truth is inescapable: I fell.
I am not hurt, no; what I am is dying.
