Surfacing

In writing this last poem

I will have to include everything:

the contests lost like tears

in darkened theaters, the rain

stopped on the waxed hood of the ambulance,

my wet shoes —

even the phone calls that pad

the drugged silence of the hospital —

all of it must be here,

so that when my lids close

like ink on the afternoon,

you will know what happened to me,

how it feels.

B.H. Boston received his BA in English from Fresno State College (CSU Fresno) and his MFA in creative writing from the University of California at Irvine. At Fresno he had the good fortune to study with poets Peter Everwine, Charles Hanzlicek, Robert Mezey, and, primarily, with Philip Levine, our recent Poet Laureate. A collection of Boston’s poems, Only the Living, was published by Helix House Press and a more recent collection of his poems, By All Lights, was published by Tebot Bach Press in the fall of 2009. In 2006, Boston was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He is currently poetry co-editor and consulting managing editor for Poetry International at San Diego State University and curator of the Master Authors Residency Program at La Jolla Country Day School. “Surfacing” appears in By All Lights and is reprinted by permission.