Dad’s Isolation
He waters his phone,
plugs in his ferns,
washes the plates
while his toast burns.
Salud!
Glass raised above an unkempt lawn,
Jill toasts the birthday of her ex:
grant him that fine poetic line
he so desires, and all the sex,
and half the happiness she’s had,
him off her plot onto the next.
William Conelly studied with Edgar Bowers at UC Santa Barbara. Retired from teaching as a dual citizen, he regularly—and happily—salutes his wife in the West Midlands town of Warwick, England. Able Muse Press published his early verse under the title Uncontested Grounds.