Floyd Skloot

In Memory
December 12, 2011 Skloot Floyd

In Memory

–November 11, 1961

 

I remember the night my father died
wind-blown snow raged at my bedroom window.
But now I read online that it was dry
and calm all week. I can still see in slow
motion the way my brother turned his back,
took off his glasses, and cried as he heard
the news over the phone. I see the black
frames flicker with firelight and hear the word
dead for myself as it leaks from his ear,
though now I can see in a photograph
that his frames from those days were clear.
I would even swear that I heard him laugh
then, a hacking sound that I keep inside,
forgotten till the night my brother died.

 

Floyd Skloot‘s ninth collection of  poems, FAR WEST, was published last year by LSU Press, which has given the book its L.E. Phiiabaum Poetry Award for 2019. LSU also published his collections THE END OF DREAMS (2006), THE SNOW’S MUSIC (2008) and APPROACHING WINTER (2015). His work has won three Pushcart Prizes, The PEN USA Literary Award, and been included in THE BEST AMERICAN ESSAYS, BEST AMERICAN SCIENCE WRITING, BEST SPIRITUAL WRITING and BEST FOOD WRITING anthologies.