Two Poems By Louis Faber

ADOPTION
 
Without choice, I, evicted from the womb
Not cast aside, despite what I would see,
Too soon carried into an unknown room
 
and gladly taken up, offsetting gloom,
and soon another child, I becoming we.
Without choice, I evicted from the womb
 
was there to watch him fall into his tomb,
leaving her with grief weighing heavily.
Too soon carried into an unknown room
 
she took gladly, I left to assume
why my birth mother hadn't wanted me,
without choice, I evicted from the womb
 
left to imagine her face, in my gloom
whispering in my dreams, "you had to be
too soon carried into an unknown room,
 
to insure you a life, that you might be
more than I could offer, be truly free."
Without choice, I evicted from the womb
too soon carried into an unknown room.




HOLDING ON
 
There comes that one moment for each who lives
when he steps out onto the silent stage,
speaks such of the lines as he recalls, gives
a half-intended bow, and in his rage
 
curses his lost youth like over-aged wine,
that is now a shadow of its promise
and he knows that somehow this is a sign
not of what he was but what he now is.
 
In the evening mirror he doesn’t know
the white bearded face that stares back at him,
a far older man who hates the coming of night.
He searches in vain for a way to show
that the spark that once burned did not grow dim
but holds even more tightly to the light.

Louis Faber’s work has previously appeared in The Poet (UK), Atlanta Review, Arena Magazine (Australia), Exquisite Corpse, Rattle, Eureka Literary Magazine, Borderlands: the Texas Poetry Review, Midnight Mind, Pearl, Midstream, European Judaism, Greens Magazine, The Amethyst Review, Afterthoughts, The South Carolina Review and Worcester Review, among many others, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.