Poem of the Day: Past-Lives Therapy

1 / 25 / 2015

Poem of the Day: Past-Lives Therapy BY CHARLES SIMIC They explained to me the bloody bandages On the floor in the maternity ward in Rochester, N.Y.,    Cured the backache I acquired bowing to my old master,    Made me stop putting thumbtacks round my bed. They showed me an officer on horseback, Waving a saber next to a burning farmhouse    And a barefoot woman in a nightgown, Throwing stones after him and calling him Lucifer. I was a straw-headed boy in patched overalls.    Come dark a chicken would roost in my hair.    Some even laid eggs as I played my ukulele    And my mother and father crossed themselves. Next, I saw myself inside an abandoned gas station    Constructing a spaceship out of a coffin, Red traffic cone, cement mixer and ear warmers, When a church lady fainted seeing me in my underwear. Some days, however, they opened door after door,    Always to a different room, and could not find me.    There'd be only a small squeak now and then,    As if a miner's canary got caught in a mousetrap. Charles Simic, "Past-Lives Therapy" from The Voice at 3:00 AM: Selected Late and New Poems.Copyright © 2003 by Charles Simic. Reprinted with the permission of Harcourt, Inc. This material may not be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher. Source: The Voice at 3:00 AM: Selected Late and New Poems (Harcourt Inc., 2003) CHARLES SIMIC Biography  More poems by this author