Poetry by Steve Henn

Kai Schreiber CC




Dad

I was not the boy
you’d’ve liked for me to be.

That would be junior,
the point guard.

I recollect feeling singular
and valued on a day you took me
to the field adjacent to Sacred
Heart to catch a football.

I never did ask to join
a football team. Once,
watching my younger brother play
and watching me watch him,
you turned to me and said,
“you know, it’s not too late.”

You would have to have
inhabited your body or mine
in that moment, knowing
what you saw in my face
and what you meant for me
to understand, as I do now, 
that it was a gesture
of unfathomably gentle tenderness.




​
Recovery Room

Another guy had seen Dead & Co
at a different venue than me
and we talked about that afterwards.
Somebody said something positive
about seeing a psychiatrist for a long time
“after I got sober, when it was useful”
and thank God for once it wasn’t
get off those pills, they’re useless.
See, I take those pills, and I’ve taken
those pills, and I’ll take those pills,
in all likelihood, in perpetuity.
As prescribed only so don’t blow me shit.




Steve Henn wrote American Male, Guilty Prayer, Indiana Noble Sad Man of the Year, two previous books, and three previous chapbooks. He's in Indiana. Find out at therealstevehenn.com.