New Poetry by Percy Olsen

To my daughter

At first we all shared in it

Over an oval table

Let it fill our homes to the brim and billow out the windows

There was plenty to go around

When a man in a stale room

Brushed the dust off his rounded shoulders

He put up his fences

And claimed some for himself

When we saw what the man had done

Most met this divergence with a shrug

We still shared in it, bottled it and let it carry us to unseen places

There was plenty to go around

But there were others who imitated the man

And their shoulders were too pushed forward

And they stole from the pool and said it had always been theirs 

But we didn’t mind

There was plenty to go around

And when we poisoned it

We said don’t worry

We said there was plenty left

And when we burned it

We said don’t worry

There was plenty left

And when it was infected

We ran from the cure

And our shoulders tipped forward

And we said there was plenty left to build a fence around

- © Percy Olsen 2023

Percy Olsen lives in Astoria, New York, where he practices law and spends quality time with his family. This is his first writing submission in over a decade.