Two Poems by Jim Moore


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Last Night at Dinner

Someone who almost died
sits next to me, someone
I love. I smile and pass the noodles.
No one can ever see
all the way inside us.
An orange light hovers
over the clouded city,
though it’s dark
and has been for hours.
As if somewhere a fire
rages out of control,
and we are its kindling.
The fish we eat is firm,
but sweet. The son
of my friend charges a quarter
for his father to enter
his room: a bargain!
There is a secret life
inside us that  knows the cost,
that is willing to pay the price.



At Night We Read Aloud The Aeneid

But slowly. At this rate,
Rome may never get built.
Each night, the boat of our voices
carries us towards our dreams
on the dissolving tide of a world
both strange and bloody. A world
in which love does not matter,
though our love makes of it
a place where we can bear to live.

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JIM MOORE lives in St.Paul, Minnesota with his wife, the photographer JoAnn Verburg.  His most recent book, (click title of book) THE LONG EXPERIENCE OF LOVE, was published by Milkweed Editions in 1995.  He teaches in the MFA program at Hamline University.  "Last Night at Dinner" first appeared in The Kenyon Review, and "At Night We Read Aloud The Aeneid" first appeared in the Threepenny Review.

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