Tim Suermondt

Chamberlain

The sky is gray and the clouds
outside the hospital window
even grayer.
I close the book on Neville
Chamberlain but I refuse to surrender

to the grimness of the weather.
In my mind it’s a sunny day,
people lined up for pizza throughout
the city,
a blind man I knew who had a collie

called Seeing Eye helped
to the head of the line, women telling
the man he has a fine, fine dog.
I lie back on the disappointing pillows
and stare

at the ceiling, the Sistine Chapel
of Cambridge—no, no,
that’s way too majestic for this place,
but I keep the sun and the pizzeria close.
I return to the book, Munich on the horizon.

.

Tim Suermondt’s sixth full-length book of poems, A Doughnut And The Great Beauty Of The World, will be coming out in 2023 from MadHat Press. He has published in Poetry, Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, The Georgia Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Stand Magazine, Smartish Pace, The Fortnightly Review, Poet Lore, and Plume, among many others. He lives in Cambridge (MA) with his wife, the poet Pui Ying Wong.

A.G. and Casey, thank you for the opportunity. Best, Tim allampoet@earthlink.net

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