Stewart Florsheim is an award-winning poet whose work has been published in many magazines and anthologies. His most recent collection is The Short Fall From Grace, published by Blue Light Press and winner of the 2005 Blue Light Book Award.
The Short Fall From Grace
There is a special resonance and poignancy in Stewart Florsheim's poems. Although they may speak matter-of-factly about the world and about art itself, they manage with great subtlety to explore well below the surface of our lives. These are poems to handle with care, as they have been sharpened with the precise blade of truth.
--Elizabeth Rosner, The Speed of Light
The Boy Scout Handbook
Father makes a big loop
then pulls the end of the rope through.
It looks like a cursive O,
the first letter of a word
in a foreign language
we're trying to master
but neither of us has a clue:
bowline, clove hitch, sheet bend.
He looks at the book
then pulls the rope out,
sweating--his big hands
that would sooner carve sides of beef.
Years earlier he took me
to his meat market
and showed off the carcasses
hanging in the locker.
See, this is how you carve a steak,
from the hindquarter.
His cleaver glided easily
across lines of gristle
then he handed me the filet,
blood dripping
from his hands into mine.
