“I Met Him at an Anonymous Meeting” by Meaghan Quinn


“Treehugger” Image (detail) by Pam Brodersen

Circled around fold out chairs I squeezed
his hand at the end of the Lord’s Prayer.
I wanted to give him something to believe
in deeper than the creed. I wasn’t prepared
for him to go back to selling out of his car
or even further back to living broken, alone.
After hours, I smell him cooking in the park

on the edge of a cot stoking a city of homes.

Off the grid, unannounced, more elbow room
to move around. There are whispers of his needs.
By morning the city finds traces of him, spoons,
rosaries, wax envelopes all down the streets.
Predawn sauna of summer, his crown of dreads,
in the mangled butternut tree roots, body and bread.

 

 

Meaghan Quinn is an Assistant Poetry Editor for The Tishman Review. She holds an MFA from the Writing Seminars at Bennington College. She was nominated for Best New Poets 2015 and a 2015 Pushcart Prize and was a recipient of the Nancy Penn Holsenbeck Prize. Her poems are forthcoming or have been published in Heartwood, 2River, Adrienne, Triggerfish, Free State Review, and other journals.