New Jersey by Craig Morgan Teicher

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend December 5, 2016   New Jersey   Craig Morgan Teicher

I was afraid the past would catch up with me, would find this new house too like the scarred old childhood home. But it hasn't yet. A tree casts soft and gentle shade over our green yard. I feel forgiven all the sins I didn't commit for long minutes at a time. What were they? I can't now think of anything wrong with me—I fit in these rooms, can mostly agree to each day. For long minutes I don't even blame my mother for dying, my father for spending years in bed. My little traumas are just souvenirs of other lives, of places I might have once visited. I'm mostly a father here, a husband, barely a son. The big sun rises early here, as I do, with everyone.            Copyright © 2016 Craig Morgan Teicher. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   "After over a decade in Brooklyn, New York, city life just stopped working for my family, so we moved to New Jersey, where life has been working very well. I grew up in the suburbs and had a rough time, so I was scared moving back to the suburbs would freak me out. It hasn't, but I've been writing lots of sonnets as a way of thinking it through." —Craig Morgan Teicher   Craig Morgan Teicher is the author of The Trembling Answers, forthcoming from BOA Editions. He works at Publishers Weekly, teaches at New York University, and lives in New Jersey with his wife and children.   Poetry by Teicher   The Trembling Answers (BOA Editions, 2017)  "Home is so Sad" by Philip Larkin "My Friends" by W. S. Merwin "Black Storm Days" by Joshua Edwards Poem-a-Day   Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038