Poetry by T.K. Lee
T.K. Lee is the author of two acclaimed collections of poetry (To Square a Circle and Scapegoat) T.K. Lee is the author of two acclaimed collections of poetry (To Square a Circle and Scapegoat) and award-winning dramas (Paper Thin, Loose Hog, and On How To Accommodate Marlo’s Frying Pan) as well as prize-winning short fiction. He is a past Eudora Welty Fellow and a past recipient of the Tennessee Williams Scholar Medal. He is tenured faculty serving two top-ranked graduate MFA programs (Creative Writing; Theatre Education) both at the historic Mississippi University for Women.
The Prodigal Psalms
Selections
PSALM XXI
The psalmist, lacking human comfort, seeks refuge.
1 Some see you and say how
your step isn’t as steady
these days.
Some go out of their way to
2 watch you lean heavy
on a staff long-since
worn down to the more manageable stump
of a protestant cane.
3 You linger day-to-day,
keeping eye
on the one surviving landline
in America.
Dutifully tending to your herd of leftovers,
worried the supper plate
not only knows your secret
but also waits to tell
each passer-by:
This flock of scraps
could be your last.
4 (You’ve worried over that
and very well.
Why, at every meal,
those teeth have gnashed).
PSALM XXIV
The psalmist embraces an appeal to pity.
1 I’m being unfair.
I suppose
I should say like a shepherd.
You are not a shepherd
2 because
a shepherd doesn’t hesitate.
He searches for what was lost.
Not for what was.
Even at the risk of personal harm.
3 A shepherd doesn’t wait to
take up arms.
Even if it’s a fork.
He seeks and finds and returns to the fold.
He is forgiving.
He is prudent.
He is good—
so good, I’m told.
(That I shall not want).
PSALM XXVII
The psalmist turns prophet and leans onto his own understanding.
1 You break cornbread
into a glass of buttermilk
which you don’t eat at
the kitchen table.
You’re not at the kitchen table
2 because you want to see the phone
the way you like
to be able
to do
and: You can’t see the phone
the way you like to
be able
to do from the kitchen table.
(Correct me if I’m wrong:
You didn’t have to make up a reason
to move closer
to the phone
(powdered-blue,
with wayward cord,
a Trimline half-shell)
hung up
on the wall beside
the back door
in the kitchen.
3 (God knows
the phone’s not going to
move closer to you).
PSALM XXX
For the director of music, with no instruments.
1 You eat with faith
your hands will
remember the way
to your mouth.
Do you know how lucky you are
that they do still?
2 (It’s a shame
man cannot live
by cornbread alone).
PSALM XXXIII
1 The prophet seeks validation.
4 A prayer for those who dwell within their own mercy.
1 You collect calls.
Have for years.
Though you couldn’t tell
to look at the walls.
Instead: You’re quick
to joke about
the clutter in your head.
You’re full up, you say,
ear to ear.
2 People don’t laugh. Instead:
People ask how lonely is your lonely.
You’re quickest here:
Well…
not once
have I thought about it twice.
3 They can’t know you’ve spent
the better part of the year
complaining
of the headache,
of the exacting toll
it takes/has taken/will take
on the body:
cracked knuckle to creaking joint.
4 Collecting calls
is not a hobby
for the weak and frail.