[Poetry | Issue 10]

richard westheimer

just so stories

This is my first memory of obsession—
these stories that began with “best beloved”

explaining how camels got humps and tigers
their stripes. The book jacket so well worn,

corners torn — maybe by my father’s fingers when
they were as pudgy as mine. This was as close

as we got, he and I, to the word “love” being
exchanged — but it was close enough:

on each page, the faint smell
of grandma’s perfume, the elephants

and their slate gray trunks, the paper—
clay coated slick, the yellow yellow leopard

before he got his spots, the bare, hot, shiny Veldt
a heat mirage rising off the page,

and me, elbows down, feet up,
my cheeks cupped in my own hands

so sure that this was
the story of creation.

 __________

About the author

Dick Westheimer lives in rural southwest Ohio. He is winner of the 2023 Joy Harjo Poetry Prize, a Rattle Poetry Prize finalist, and a Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee. His poems have appeared or upcoming in Whale Road Review, Rattle, OneArt, Abandon Journal, Stone Poetry Quarterly, and Minyan. His chapbook, A Sword in Both Hands, Poems Responding to Russia’s War on Ukraine, is published by SheilaNaGig. Find more at www.dickwestheimer.com