Stone Soup Servings is a regular series for Oddball Magazine that features upcoming performers at Stone Soup Poetry, the long-running spoken word venue in the Boston area that has partnered with Oddball Magazine. Stone Soup Poetry now meets from 7-9 p.m. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery’s new location at 541 Massachusetts Avenue in Central Square Cambridge, Massachusetts. The open mike sign-up at 6:30 p.m.

David R. Surette has released a new book of poetry, Stable, and he will be reading from that collection this Monday. Read a sample from Stable below, then be in the audience on August 24.

 

Aquariums

I tagged along with my brother Steve
to all the aquarium stores in the area.
There was one on Highland Ave and briefly,
one at the corner of Charles and Gale,
one block from our house.
I even followed him down Pleasant into Medford.
These places were hot and damp, tropical.
I was afraid to breathe believing my lungs would grow green.
He loved turtles and kept them
in the plastic bowl with the green palm tree.
They didn’t last long and sometimes
their eyes swelled shut or their shell grew weak.
Steve learned what to do to saved them
and fed them what they needed
and even bought drops when their eyes swelled.
He had fish too, guppies and gourami and African frogs.
This didn’t fit with the hockey Steve,
the fierce, quick tempered defenseman
or the Steve I saw in the empty lots by school
fighting all comers, throwing lefts
when they expected rights.