The Glacier
Issue Three
Winter 2024

The Book of Light

I suppose it’s time to write the book of light
and include you all in it, even 
the stutterers, whom I feared, and the girls
who betrayed me, and the little brown fish 
whose wariness became my study,
whose name escapes me,
who died in his bowl on my watch.

A Discussion about Art

It can be whatever, we decided, but not whatever you want.
That was our first real discussion about art.
We started meaning less and less and feeling less.

Meaning and feeling, what a mess.
We started rolling down the hill and walking up and rolling down.
In the leaves, in the snow. Over and over.

We started saying, you don’t respect me, 
back and forth, practicing until it stuck, until it hurt.
That was my youth. I loved it so much.

Kudos, Friends

So why didn’t they tell me it’s excellent,
sublime and inspiring, nearly perfect,
and go home and stay and while you’re 
resting at home, among friends and family,
preparing to do it again but even larger,
even bolder, if that’s possible, eat whatever
you want and drink the bar bare,
because you deserve it, you always have,
we just lacked the power and skill to assess
and discern—and you should go ahead and start
smoking again, though I can’t recall your brand,
maybe it’ll come to me—and neglect prayer
and even the most trite forms of self-sacrifice,
because that’s how they reward superior beings
(and reinforce their superiority) like you, 
with your intelligence, drive, grace under pressure:

holding your Camel near the cracked window,
Turkish and Domestic Blend, pack on the dash,
driving us home from a so-so party and describing 
your project, its themes, arc, and phases,
and we were trying, I swear, to listen, to hear you,
to absorb, to take it all in, that night.

What’s It Gonna Be? It Hurts a Little

What’s next? Wisdom? 
Anything I can do to avoid the pain. 
Anything I can say to avoid the pain. 

I was looking at Enrique, the little baby, 
son of Juan and Elda, and even then 
I could not believe in heaven. 

Some of us aren’t made for exaltation. 
I’m just taking up space again here 
at the office. It’s best if I tell you right now 

I need to be left alone this afternoon. 
Hold my calls, please. Apologize 
to my wife for missing the christening. 

I promise I’ll shuffle through the contracts
until I discover the rightful owner. 
If my car breaks down I’ll walk 

all the way home past the convention hall
and the drive-thru banks.

Will You Help Me? I Need a Surgeon

Or an inoculation,
or a spectacular vision,
for once in my life.

And I would like to replace
our battered old canoe with a new one.
And, while we’re talking, the staff
here is grouchy.

The bellman snarled at our luggage.
I used to be on their side.
Now, I lean toward beady-eyed
management. Better shoes,

not to mention an overt disregard
for any form of failure.

Steve Langan the author of Freezing, Notes on Exile & Other Poems, Meet Me at the Happy Bar, and What It Looks Like, How It Flies. Bedtime Stories, a collection of poems, the ninth book in the Contemporary Maine Poetry Series, is just out from Littoral Books. He lives in Yarmouth, Maine.

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