Stewart Florsheim is an award-winning poet whose work has been published in many magazines and anthologies. His new 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
Isaac at 50
1.
He forgives his father, his propensity
to believe in things he can’t know.
This afternoon Isaac was riveted to a painting
of a nude staring into the morning light,
the long shadow she has decided
to leave behind, the bed next to her unmade,
her red high-heeled shoes resting at right angles.
Art, we say, because it redeems us
not unlike the woman in the painting
who has had more lovers than she can recall
and each one is always the last.
2.
Father in temple praying loudly
in a language he does not understand.
When he starts davening with the other men
I am the one who gets dizzy so I place him
back in his meat market, imagine
he is picking up sides of beef
to hand to God. We walk home
my hand tucked inside his and nothing
can phase us—even mother who starts
yelling at father as we enter the apartment
wondering how he can expect to be saved.
