Two Poems

Cal Freeman

A Georgic for the Shepherds of Last Year
They’ll give the warehouse
a proper valediction.

It’s a story about coming into speech.
Dolphined is the verb
of the century’s quarter-mark.

Sweetened with noble rot,
someone intones Tomorrow

and tomorrow and tomorrow.

Aperitif, sauterne, stray
sabot on a wall, an omelette

and a glass of wine.
Someone claims a child.

The adoptive seem so noble,
but even they have straps

and yardsticks that measure out
the sentence of a shun.

There are too many genres

(this country’s arid interiors
give us bounteous acreage to walk)

and not nearly enough
parents for this life.

A Widower
It’s stupid and you’re gonna laugh,
but I was depressed again and feeling doomed.
I’d rather not offer approbation to them
that don’t need it.
There’s an engram in the neural matter (Hinrichsen)
of the brain for each friend’s past divorces.
There’s empathy and a living through it
with nobody. Even the suggestion
of swimming is laborious
when stuff like this is going on.
I’m blanking on the name, but he used
to burn pallets and leaves
in the empty lot down the street.
He’d been taking from and of
and talking about resigning
oneself to scuttled plans to
his friends who were going through it.
He had opinions about re-signing
a basketball player few liked
and he’d share them on phone calls
to a local radio station. His calls
sometimes got interrupted by wind
and static and the roar of flames.
He told me you never stop going
through it but it helps to talk.
I wasn’t sure where he found
the endless supply of pallets.
At what age does it get most
important? I asked him. I’d like
to think he gnawed on the question
before laughing gnomically,
as a garden gnome stood sentry
near the ghost stoop of poured concrete.

Cal Freeman (he/him) is the author of several books and chapbooks, most recently The Weather of Our Names (Cornerstone Press 2025). His writing can be found in many publications, including The Glacier, Berkeley Poetry Review, Willow Springs, Oxford American, and North American Review. He teaches at Oakland University.