Michael Estabrook-Two Poems

Faith

We thought he was a goner
honestly
the cancer taking a kidney
gall bladder a piece of his vena cava
and who knows what else.
He thought he was a goner too
made his will
the day before the operation
from his hospital bed
called everyone with his sorrowful
goodbyes
the fear and uncertainty straining
in his voice.
The surgery was a success
relief and ecstasy
blessings all around
only a few microscopic bad cells
remaining
to be cleaned up by radiation
and chemo.
He already has a renewed belief
in God and his only begotten Son
and a vow to attend church
again.



Time Travel

Where has all
the time gone in his life
one moment
he’s walking his girl
to her math class
next he’s doing the after-dinner dishes
so her new nail polish
won’t get spoiled
one moment
all he can think about
is kissing her
next he’s waiting two hours
in the Orthodontics office
while she gets a root canal
one moment
he’s obsessing if she’ll really spend
her life with him
next he’s reliving their first date
first kiss, their first “I love you”
over and over
and over again in his mind.



Michael Estabrook is a recently retired baby boomer child-of-the-sixties poet freed finally after working 40 years for “The Man” and sometimes “The Woman.” No more useless meetings under florescent lights in stuffy windowless rooms. Now he’s able to devote serious time to making better poems when he’s not, of course, trying to satisfy his wife’s legendary Honey-Do List.