Thursday, February 02, 2017

The Sunday Poet: Anthony Michael Majahad


Anthony Michael Majahad




Anthony Michael Majahad is an environmental chemist.  He and his wife, Dorry, move from Cambridge to Winthrop.  Mentors have been Jean Pedrick, Nina Nyhart, William Corbett, and Carol Dine; currently Susan Donnelly.  Poems have appeared in Marblehead Magazine, Suffolk University Venture, Bagel Bard Anthologies #6 and #7 and MSPS’s Waterfront CREW Chapter Anthologies.  He published online via North Shore Poetry Forum, Ocean Blue and Muddy River.




The Reception After

“Nope,” Nana says, in her
half West Concord and half Carver
Yankee accent, scythe sharp,
so sharp that it could cut through
the fog that would settle over
the family’s cranberry bogs,
on those frosty late September nights.

“Nope, I never go over to someone’s
house and eat after a funeral—
someone I know always dies.”

She picks up her fine bone china cup,
her hands shaking from the tremors
she has had since a young woman,
sips her hot tea cautiously and lights-up
a tightly tamped Camel cigarette
without missing a beat, or spilling a drop.

“I’ve seen it happen too many times before.”

I never went to Nana’s wake, or her funeral.

There must have been some sort of reception;
maybe at her house at 1620 High Street,
the last one at the end of the tarred road,
just before it became the dirt road that
meandered through the dark pines forest.

It is almost certain that if there was food there,
no one from our family took a bite.

3 comments:

  1. I have always been touched by Anthony Majahad's poetry. Their intimate descriptions draw me in to live in their moments.

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  2. Anonymous9:33 AM

    Good poem, well-observed. Humorous and poignant. Nice work, Tony! SD

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  3. I wish I had gone and visited him more often.

    ReplyDelete