On the way home he stopped to see his mom
in the nursing home. She clung to his hand
and wouldn’t let go. Without knowing who
he was, he was someone, surely. But then
breakfast. He fed her. Half-finished, she clawed
at him some more. Stared at his paw. She seemed
to be figuring this all out. He yawned
and she asked, Are you tired? I was tossing
and turning all night, he replied. Guilty
conscience, she smiled. Tut, tut, tut. Then drifting
back under the closing ice. Life is strange
sometimes because it’s beautiful, he wrote.
The Former War Reporter Paul Watson Finds It Beautiful
DAN O’BRIEN’s third collection of poetry, New Life, will be published by CB Editions in London in 2015. His second collection, _Scarsdale, was published by CB Editions in 2014, and in the US by Measure Press in 2015. War Reporter, his debut collection, was published in 2013 by CB Editions, and by Hanging Loose Press in the US. War Reporter received the 2013 Fenton Aldeburgh First Collection Prize and was shortlisted for the 2013 Forward Foundation’s Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection, both in the UK. O’Brien’s poems have appeared internationally in journals, magazines, and newspapers including 32 Poems, 5 AM, 10Tal, Ambit, Bare Fiction, Birmingham Poetry Review, Cold Mountain Review, and Crab Orchard Review.