Winner of The Letter Review Prize for Poetry
The Blue Pearl
Moments before I politely inform her
her services are no longer required,
the lawyer in her plush leather chair
advises me not to concern myself
with how the custody agreement will turn out,
because "you'll lose interest soon enough,"
then suggests I buy food coloring on the way home,
because "a dad's role is to make green pancakes."
Driving away
to pick up my son at preschool,
I laugh to keep my head from exploding.
This week my little boy will sleep under my roof,
and the blue pearl he gave me when he was born
will shine in my palm like the earth in space.
When Isaiah laughs,
it glows from within,
like a crystal ball.
Should I falter, it buzzes
till I pick it up,
cautioning me, lest I lose it,
to send the check and show up like clockwork,
to remember his mother will always be his mother,
and to be with him when he's with me.
People can babble all they want,
tempting the karma of schadenfreude.
I tuck the blue pearl into my son's palm,
and he presses it into mine.
Passing it between us
keeps it warm and lustrous.
Greg Nelson, a depression survivor and former teacher, received an MFA from George Mason University. A few years ago, after a brief hiatus of twenty-six years, he resumed submitting. (As John Lennon says, “Life is what happens while you’re making other plans.”) Before the interlude, his poems appeared in Phoebe, Poet Lore, the minnesota review, Artemis and elsewhere. Publications since include CATHEXIS Northwest Press, Flying South, Atlanta Review, HeartWood Literary Magazine, and Gyroscope Review, among others; forthcoming in Here: a poetry journal.