By Phoebe Cary
He dwelt among “apartments let,”
About five stories high;
A man I thought that none would get,
And very few would try.
A boulder, by a larger stone
Half hidden in the mud,
Fair as a man when only one
Is in the neighborhood.
He lived unknown, and few could tell
When Jacob was not free;
But he has got a wife,—and O!
The difference to me!
Poet Bio
More By This Poet
Suppose
Suppose, my little lady,
Your doll should break her head,
Could you make it whole by crying
Till your eyes and nose are red?
And would n’t it be pleasanter
To treat it as a joke;
And say you ’re glad “’T was Dolly’s
And not your...
More Poems about Arts & Sciences
The Racist Bone
I know this is a real thing, because
When I was a kid, my big sister took me
To the Capitol Theater, in my hometown
Of Rochester, NY,
And there was a movie that afternoon,
The Tingler, which starred Vincent Price,
And what I remember best...
The Last Word
I am a door of metaphor
waiting to be opened.
You’ll find no lock, no key.
All are free to enter, at will.
Simply step over the threshold.
Remember to dress for travel, though.
Visitors have been known
to get carried away.Illustration by Shadra Strickland
More Poems about Living
if time is queer/and memory is trans/and my hands hurt in the cold/then
there are ways to hold pain like night follows day
not knowing how tomorrow went down.
it hurts like never when the always is now,
the now that time won't allow.
there is no manner of tomorrow, nor shape of today
only like always having...
Here’s an Ocean Tale
My brother still bites his nails to the quick,
but lately he’s been allowing them to grow.
So much hurt is forgotten with the horizon
as backdrop. It comes down to simple math.
The beach belongs to none of us, regardless
of color, or money....
More Poems about Love
Love Letter
I’d like to be a shrine, so I can learn from peoples’ prayers the story of hearts. I’d like to be a scarf so I can place it over my hair and understand other worlds. I’d like to be the...
the world is about to end and my grandparents are in love
still, living like they orbit one another,
my grandfather, the planet, & grandma, his moon assigned
by some gravitational pull. they have loved long enough
for a working man to retire. grandma says she’s not tired,
she...