My Attention

My attention is in the coffee cup
waiting for savoring.
My reading glasses are stationed
all over my routine
(like my 20-years loving him).
1 to 1.5 magnification — so slight
how could it matter?
Yet .5 less or greater
and I couldn’t have read the
tiny directions and warmings
for the medicine I picked up
for him at Walgreens. There
he lies sleeping,
the world’s softest, warmest
blanket. Here I sit trying to
focus on Robert Hayden,
steaming up my readers with each
trip to the cup.

 

Timothy Robbins has been a regular contributor to Hanging Loose since 1978. His poems have appeared in Main Street Rag, Off The Coast, Bayou Magazine, Slant, Tipton Review, Cholla Needles and many others. He has published three volumes of poetry: Three New Poets (Hanging Loose Press), Denny’s Arbor Vitae (Adelaide Books) and Carrying Bodies (Main Street Rag Press). He lives in Wisconsin with his husband of twenty years.

Luis Lázaro Tijerina was born in Salina, Kansas. Mr. Tijerina has a Master of Art degree in history, concentration being military history and diplomacy. He is a published author of military theory, short stories, essays and poetry. Mr. Tijerina resides in Vermont.