James Babbs- Three Poems

I Found A Picture of You

I found a picture of you

between the pages of this book

I don’t remember

putting it in there

but I opened it up

and

there it was

you were laughing at

something

somebody must have said

sitting on the orange sofa

in my parents’ living room

and

immediately I knew

exactly when it was taken

what we’d been doing that day

the promises we made to

one another

but never meant to keep

If You Came Over Tonight

I felt like

I needed to write this

because

I wanted to tell you

about the darkness

how it sneaks in

on its quiet little feet

coming right up next to me

before I even know it’s there and

maybe

you won’t understand this

but it’s okay

because

I want to tell you

the way it hovers above me and

follows me around

like a ghost

drifting through every room and

no one else sees it

but I know it’s there

I can feel it

in my bed at night

the weight of it

pushing against me and

I guess

I must have been a teenager

the first time it found me and

I was thinking

if you came over tonight

instead of getting drunk

maybe

you could just hold me

close enough

so there wouldn’t be

any space left

for the darkness to crawl inside

The Last of Five

when I was growing up

I sometimes wished my

parents were younger like

some of the other kids’

parents were but I

was the last of five

children and there were

sixteen years between my

oldest sister and me

when I was born

my father was already past forty

my mother nearly thirty-six

they were middle-aged and

the initial excitement

of parenthood had faded

by the time I came along

but I guess they wanted

one last chance before

they were finished and

if they hadn’t then I

wouldn’t be here writing this

I have published hundreds of poems over the last several years in print journals and online.  I live in the same small town where I grew up.  I work for the government but don’t like to talk about it.  I have a cherry tree and two grapevines in my back yard and several pesky rabbits.  My full length collection Disturbing the Light is coming soon from Interior Noise Press.