☀ Today's Poem: "The Boys of Cass and Pacific" Luke Johnson

Today's Headline: Eduardo Martínez-Leyva on His Debut, “Cowboy Park”

February 7, 2025 The Boys of Cass and Pacific Luke Johnson —For Harmon We lobbed a ball above a rim we could not reach. Reached as though our feet could find a rhythm right with summer haze and black top, bodies yet to stretch. Afternoons, our daddies smoldered pipes on porches playing cards, and stacked unemployment checks. We dared not interrupt their count. Dared not take a moment's glance from men who mangled skin with brass and bragged on corners filled with swagger, swooping low to sweet ladies. The things we did when no one watched was worrisome: acid, shrooms, pop of bottles, bongs, girls in jean skirts swaying hips like nets in violet rain. We learned to pass how to dribble how to leap despite our average lift and lilt like something holy wholly terrified, shot clock clicking away. Years later, when the city cleared the court we knew as boys and the school no longer draped our names our trophy trapped in glass, I watched an old friend weave through traffic, stutter my name with surprise. On his cheek a mark, one eye gone, a limp and struggle for air. He asked for a hit. Asked if I'd ever been in love. Wondered about my life my sons if I'd lost or been slowly losing. By which he meant light, the lightness of air: the lob and lift and score. The swelling crowd. The flicker first before the bell blaring into the night. from the book QUIVER / Texas Review Press READ ABOUT TODAY'S POEM Share Tweet Forward I lost touch with my best friend from high school, like many relationships do, post-graduation. Years later at a fourth of July barbeque, I ran into him. He was an empty shell of himself. He’d spent 5 years in Iraq as a sniper and laughed about the lives he’d taken. This poem blossomed from a desire to go back in time. A time when he and I (and so many others) were innocent young men, navigating the world. Luke Johnson on "The Boys of Cass and Pacific" Eduardo Martínez-Leyva on His Debut, Cowboy Park "I was trying to explain how the poems depict a family or community that has endured different types of oppression. I would like folks to see these figures that have been impacted in some way by societal structures. But nevertheless, there’s still heart, there’s beauty, and there’s strength there, despite those flaws. And I think that’s also my way of giving myself permission to depict the flaws in order to also show a little bit of their resilience." via LOS ANGELES REVIEW OF BOOKS READ ALL TODAY'S HEADLINES What Sparks Poetry: Carol Moldaw on Drafts "In many ways, this draft marks the end of my blind groping and the beginning of the poem proper. Nothing I’d written up to that point had caught my poetic interest linguistically; my thoughts, preoccupations, and perceptions had been floating around without substance or anchor. In this draft though, images began to coalesce, and the lines develop a distinctive voice—the poem’s voice." READ THIS WEEK'S ISSUE donate View in browser You have received this email because you submitted your email address at www.poems.com. If you would like to unsubscribe please click here. © 2025 Poetry Daily, Poetry Daily, MS 3E4, 4400 University Dr., Fairfax, VA 22030 Design by the Binding Agency

͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏