One Poem by Steve Deutsch

 

Prized Possession

 

Yogi was short and fat

and prone to tears

when things

didn’t go his way.

 

At eleven

he was the first

of our gang

to get glasses.

 

We were friends

and not one of us

called him

four eyes.

 

 

Instead, we took

turns trying his spectacles

on— smudging the lenses

past visibility.

 

His parents were poor,

the glasses a stretch,

and they reminded him

constantly to be careful.

 

I was there when

Eddie passed him

the basketball

and Yogi turned

 

to catch it

with his face.

He broke his nose

and had two shiners,

 

but the glasses

hit the grass

and came

through intact.

 

I saw them today

in a display case outside his office

when I went

to pick up my new specs.

Steve Deutsch is poetry editor of Centered Magazine and is poet in residence at the Bellefonte Art Museum. Steve was nominated three times for the Pushcart Prize. His Chapbook, Perhaps You Can, was published in 2019 by Kelsay Press. His full length books, Persistence of Memory, Going, Going, Gone, and Slipping Away, were published by Kelsay. Brooklyn was awarded the Sinclair Poetry Prize from Evening Street Press. A new full length, Seven Mountains, was just published.