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Jay Klokker: a poem



Didn't he

He didn't make much of it. Gritted

his teeth. Put his hands on his knees

and caught his breath a little longer

when he set down his end of the canoe

at the edge of the lake. Didn't talk about

crawling through the belly of a battleship

breathing asbestos for the war effort.

Didn't say what was hurting him most.

Didn't stop smoking. Didn't curse.

Then came the dinner when he

pushed away his blackberry cobbler

with ice cream and said, "I have no regrets".

He didn't say anything more.

The blackberry cobbler said everything.



Originally from the Seattle area of the US, Jay Klokker now lives ninety miles north of New York City in the small college town of New Paltz. He studied poetry writing at the University of Washington and Boston University, where he received his Masters degree. After recently retiring from a career of teaching English as a Second Language to immigrant adults, he has been concentrating on the writing of poems and speculative fiction. His poems have appeared in a number of literary journals, including Agni, The Beloit Poetry Journal, and Shark Reef.

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