Something We Held in Common

Michael Allyn Wells

Did I miss you
because you were not here
or because I only knew a concept of you?

Can you be angry at someone
you don’t really know
and love them at the same time?

Your name was all I had of you.
It was our name; something we held
in common when I didn’t even have a picture

of you to hold. So, I didn’t really have you.
I could not produce you
for parent-teacher night.

I could not explain
to friends what I did not
understand myself.

When mom sent me with a proxy
to Indian Guides, it was the longest night ever.
Neither of us wanted to be there,

sitting cross legged on the floor
thinking of senseless Indian names
for each other in some cute father son way.
​
And later, when he wanted to take your name
away from me – in exchange for his,
​I would have no part of it.


​Appeared in Boston Literary Magazine - January 2020

Michael Allyn Wells is an alumnus of the AWP Writer 2 Writer Program, Spring 2017 session. The poet makes his home in Kansas City, with his wife and three rescue dogs. Wells is an avid San Francisco Giants fan, likes wine white and black coffee. His work has appeared in Right Hand Pointing, Montucky Review, Nude Bruce Review, Remington Review, WestWard Quarterly, Best of Boston Literary Magazine, Vol. 1 & Vol 2, and Rockhurst Fine Arts Review, as will other venues.

I came into the new year feeling  especially ready for it. The way things are in the world & our current government, one has to hope this year brings a lot of change and I pray for the better. 

​New years day I attended a yoga - meditation - plan for the new year workshop.  You can read more about it here. I'm trying to map out  my writing projects for the year so that I have some accountability for them.  Today I did a free write ,  I have some reading to do. 

On the up and coming, I have a new poem coming out some time this month. I have other work out for consideration and I hope to get some more out tomorrow. 

Looking forward - albeit with the standard trepidation, to AWP20 in San Antonio, early March. The conference I enjoy, the travel to a new place - accommodations, etc. These are anxiety traps I get caught in and struggle like I'm smack dab in the middle of a spider web.   

Happy birthday to Sylvia Plath who would have been 87 today, had she lived.  I wonder how many writers owe her as an inspiration for their craft?  She was the first writer that I recall reading that had the ability to bend and shape language into something I recognized more powerful than just words strung together. What could she have achieved had she lived a full life of writing? 

A surprise gift from my sweetie - goat socks!  I'll let you know just how lucky they are after I've written in them a while.