Two Poems By Douglas K Currier

To a younger woman  
  
When you think of your life: the work, the debt,
and ponder at the worth of waking still, 
then sleep is just closed eyes in a cold sweat.
  
When half of what you think you know is met 
with changing rules and constant lack of will, 
then you think of your life: the work, the debt.
  
When most of what you see each day is set 
in time and space, a customary chill,
then sleep is just closed eyes in a cold sweat.
  
People bleed out before your eyes, and yet 
you know no way of mopping up the spill, 
and just think of your life: the work, the debt.
  
Yourself – your body now a losing bet, 
your mind a vast deserted space until
your sleep is just closed eyes in a cold sweat.
  
And all of this will come to pass, my pet.  
You mock my age, but know this bitter pill:
when you think of your life: the work, the debt,
then sleep is just closed eyes in a cold sweat. 

Winter morning  
  
The days are cold; the nights are colder still.  
We wake and wonder if the car will start.  
Our waking motions will become a part 
of what is needed to shake off the chill
  
of morning, work, the start of day until 
we finish with the magic of this art 
that works to speed the beating of the heart. 
Of life, of weather, we have had our fill.
  
We think of others trudging through the day, 
a day remaining much like ours. We must 
continue whether weather will allow 
  
and shake the snow from us along the way 
to scrape the frozen windshield clear of frost, 
the morning spent in shovel, driveway, plow. 

Douglas K Currier has published work in many magazines both in the United States and in South America.  He lives with his wife in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.