by Paul Hostovsky
Gray Day
It’s the almost that I love
about a gray day
like today. In weather
like this, I almost
feel a kind of joy:
the heavy sky, the feeling
in the air of imminent release.
I feel like I could almost
cry. Cry as I haven’t
since I was a boy.
Because I haven’t let myself.
The overcast sky says almost.
The charged air says could.
You could do this.
You could let yourself go,
feel the thunderous sobs,
wave after wave, shoulders
heaving, lungs emptying
in that jagged way
that almost looks like
laughter. And the hiccuping
like a child that comes after.
It could feel so good,
says this feeling in the air.
Almost like joy, says the sky.
originally published in Mostly (FutureCycle Press, 2020), Pitching for the Apostates (Kelsay, 2023) and Late for the Gratitude Meeting (Kelsay, 2019)
Letters from camp
I’ve been reading the letters I wrote to my mother
over fifty years ago from camp—she saved
them all. When she died I found them
in a shoe box in my 9-year-old hand and
voice. A hand so loopy and innocent I could
weep. A voice I know like the back
of a very small hand that used to be mine
and somehow still is. The recurring theme
is winning (“We won the baseball game, I hit
a homer.” “We won the swim meet.” “We lost
the tenis tornamint because it was windy and the ball
didn’t go where we hit it.”) And also sugar (“Send
more candy.” “We had fribbles from Friendly’s.”
“Dinner was pizza and coke and desert was
choclit cake. The coke and cake were yumy.”)
Winning and sugar. Sugar and winning.
And it occurs to me, though the letters stopped,
the same themes continued for fifty years: winning
at school, winning in romance, winning at work, always
the need to kill it, to destroy the competition. The sugar
that was alcohol, the sugar that was sex, the sweet taste
of every conquest. How despicable I suddenly am
to myself. Only the misspellings are endearing,
those phonetic, understandable, forgivable mistakes.
originally published in Mostly (FutureCycle Press, 2020), Pitching for the Apostates (Kelsay, 2023) and Late for the Gratitude Meeting (Kelsay, 2019)
Paul Hostovsky‘s poems and essays appear widely online and in print. He has won a Pushcart Prize, two Best of the Net Awards, and has been featured on Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, The Writer’s Almanac, and the Best American Poetry blog. He makes his living in Boston as a sign language interpreter.