By: Tim Suermondt

The Day is Religious

And an angel on the street
calls for me to come down.

“Don’t you mean come up?”
“Just do it,” she says, the irritation
in her voice can’t be hidden.

I put on my shoes and arrive to find
her gone. I’ve had it with the mysteries
of religion and decide to get

a bite at the diner, sunlight emerging
over my shoulder like a halo.

Paris

You’re back again,
walking the streets you know better
than the streets in your home city.

You take the long way around
as frequently as you can, nothing
new eludes your gaze, you’re covering

it all with your heart and mind
back on good terms. You stop at a park
to rest on a bench as you watch people

coming and going, every couple
holding each other from entrance to exit.
You have no idea as to when you’ll

return to your rented room above
the crepe shop. Maybe you won’t return
for days, if you’re lucky.

Saying Goodbye to Mozart

She wishes it didn’t have to be,
but they’ve both agreed it’s for the best.
He’s still a genius, bad day or good,

and his jokes keep coming, not all
of them dirty, some really funny—
some she will remember well and deep

into old age. A short embrace and she gets
in the carriage and driven slowly away.
When she sticks her head out and stares

back, there he is on the corner, his head
bowed, looking rather ordinary, the way
we all look when we think no one is watching.

Pizza del Campo

My globe-trotting friend’s mistake
and we both had a laugh, pizza

in any context does no harm, only good.
And a few days later I’m walking

to my favorite pizzeria, the gusts of tragedy
and human stupidity swirling around me,

a bitter wind, but I’m able to fight it off,
order and sit in the corner, savoring

my slices like a man contented as much
as a man can be who’s never yet

been astounded by the summer moonlight
camping over the Pi(a)zza del Campo.

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Tim Suermondt’s sixth full-length book of poems A Doughnut And The Great Beauty Of The World came out in 2023 from MadHat Press. He has published in Poetry, Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, The Georgia Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Stand Magazine, Smartish Pace, The Fortnightly Review, Poet Lore and Plume, among many others. He lives in Cambridge (MA) with his wife, the poet Pui Ying Wong.