Michael Estes

2 Poems

Saturday on Ice

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My body, the problem

envelops a morning. Can’t

won’t can’t make like a

cheetah to coffee, and all

boar, no antelope into the

office. Wings gone because

melted, gone because

never, thumbs left to

their own devices. Molts hair

not skin, sweeps tile

after towel after shower

before heading to the rink. The

sweep and grace of skates

on ice when the ruts

have had their botox. Spins

on ice and loses touch

with ruts, blurs a Thursday, spins

the thin hollow sticks of time

that gather in corners into

gold. Parks back at home and

would like to eagle or flea, not

knee, to the shower, but

can’t. Sits thinking of ways

to get out.

​

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The Men in Autumn

​

, became a wave behind a prison. The ground

black because rich with oil from trucks

and drones, but the garden there, the garden

growing what it had been told

and told and told to. Windowless

block wall the men touch

the sun and warmth of in winter, and

all the grass besides. The grounds black

because rich friends just yesterday bought

landscaping, dark mulch on vines clustered

at the knees of a gilded Victorian

fountain like kids around a dad

at home. At night the kids at home

though told for months will wait and spark

at the first hint of anything, like the lights

on the grounds. Each leaf that falls

seen as a man, and the kids’ dreams

rich because black with hands and the means

to take things away in waves.

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Michael Estes

What are 2-3 books (regardless of genre) that you’ve read over the last year or less that really blew your hair back?

Two books I've loved in the past year are Sleeping with the Dictionary by Harryette Mullen and The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. Mullen's playfulness has helped me stay playful, and Atwood's novel obviously read differently now than it did 20 years ago.

Who is someone you admire who does work that you feel really benefits your community, and what kind of work is it that they do?

I admire my friends who are therapists (social workers and psychologists) for the energy they invest in being present for others.