Practice

You can’t even let go
of the blue casserole dish—
how in the world
are you going to let go
of the world? I ask myself,
standing in my kitchen
in the late afternoon sunlight
which is turning everything to gold.
Everything, that is, except the blue
casserole dish, which isn’t here
because my stepdaughter borrowed it
without asking me.
And it pisses me off because
I love that casserole dish.
Because it belonged to my mother.
Let it go, I tell myself, or maybe
that’s my mother telling me,
because she had so little time herself
to practice letting go, suddenly
finding herself on the gurney
in Emergency, apologizing
to all the nurses: “I’m sorry.
I’m not very good at this.” As if
“this” were something one could
get good at, if one practiced
letting go a little at a time,
practiced dying a little at a time,
practiced turning to gold a little at a time.

Stephen Granzyk reads “Practice” on behalf of Paul Hostovsky:

Life

When I finally figured it out—
you know, life, the whole thing—
I couldn’t write it down fast enough,
and I was shaking my head in disbelief,
smiling at the sheer dumb luck
of each new line revealing itself to me
like a winning scratch ticket, hitting it big,
I mean really big, the kind of big that
comes over you slowly and all at once,
like what it will mean for the rest of your life,
how you won’t have to work at it anymore
because everything will be different now
and the same. It was a little scary actually,
and my stomach started to hurt but the pain
was different now—it was part of the joy,
and the joy was different too because
it was unbelievable. I mean I knew it was true,
I just didn’t believe it. And that hurt, too.
Then the old hurt gave way to the new
and suddenly everything rhymed a little.

Stephen Granzyk reads “Life” on behalf of Paul Hostovsky:

Life Is Sacred

Yeah but how do we know
it’s so wonderful,
not being dead yet?
Death is a wonder—
there’s no getting around it.
Everyone wonders
where the dead have gone.
There are theories of course.
Theories of God, theories of heaven.
And science claims to know.
And some say science
has made a bigger mess
of the world than God did,
if God did make the world,
which science says He didn’t.
Between you and me,
I think we’re all asleep in heaven
dreaming the world.
Life is but a dream
like in that song about rowing a boat,
the one we sang in kindergarten.
It was a round, remember?
Different people coming in
and going out at different times,
and it went on that way
for a long time until it all ended.
And then no one was singing.
Which felt a little sad, but the silence
that hung in the air afterwards
was full of smiles.

Stephen Granzyk reads “Life Sacred” on behalf of Paul Hostovsky:

Paul Hostovsky makes his living in Boston as a sign language interpreter. His poems and essays appear widely online and in print. He has won a Pushcart Prize, two Best of the Net Awards, the FutureCycle Poetry Book Prize, and has been featured on Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, The Writer’s Almanac, and the Best American Poetry blog. His latest book of poems is PITCHING FOR THE APOSTATES (Kelsay, 2023).