Spring 2023, Volume 34

Poetry by Frank Freeman

Waiting for Geese

While the water boils on the stove
I wonder about the geese
I have not heard so far this fall
that always with their honking,
as it is called, make me look up
to search for their shifting V
against the scudding clouds
like rags of ghosts across the moon
when I lay in love on the grass
or when, a year later, fixing
a radiator hose on a Panhandle
highway, tightening the clamp,
the metal-toothed clamp,
to tighten the rubber neck around
the rim, reaching into the engine’s
innards, I heard the same so distant
sound, getting closer over the brown
yellow grass, and there they were
so high and hauntingly, or so it
seemed, free, and headed for warm,
and I remembered that night
on the grass as now I remember
looking up from under the hood
of a baby blue 68 Mustang
as I wait to hear the honking again.

 

 

 

BIO: Frank Freeman’s poetry has been published in Maine Sunday Telegram, Sehnsucht, The American Journal of Poetry, The Aroostook Review, The Axe Factory, The Decadent Review, The New York Quarterly, SN Review, and Tiger’s Eye. His book reviews, essays, and stories have appeared in many venues. He grew up in Texas, Connecticut, and California, but mostly Texas. Moved to Boston for grad school, married a Maine woman who wanted Maine back. House, kids, dog, cat, chickens, small family business. Writes in the mornings to stay sane, keeps the books of family business in afternoons.