MARK TURPIN

 

V1n1
Winter 02

 
 

The Day

 

POETRY

 
 

Again you found yourself hoping for the last day,
to be like a man whose debts are paid and rises
with the sun to walk to work alone through a green valley.

The birds he cannot name, the sun shines as he remembered
it did. His shoes kick up tiny clouds of dust on the path.
He hums idly and carries his coat under his arm.

He thinks of a lewd joke to tell his wife in the kitchen,
vows to spend more time with his children. How wonderful
he thinks it is to be a righteous man.

 

 

 


Mark Turpin is a carpenter. Sarabande Books will publish his first full-length collection, Hammer, in June, 2003. His poems have appeared in the The Paris Review, The Threepenny Review, Ploughshares and elsewhere. In 1997 he received a Whiting Award, and this Labor Day 2002 his poem "The Box" was read for the occasion on The Lehrer News Hour.