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Sizes
My sister found our father’s ring,
turquoise faded, sullied silver-plate.
It stopped my breath. Thirty years ago
I took it from his cold hand.
A big man, he never took it off,
not when he dug or swung or swam,
or smeared on huckleberry jam,
or held a cribbage peg, or gripped
a favorite pitching wedge, then fudged
his score again. With feeling,
she placed it on my palm,
we his keepers. I slipped it on.
It hung, slack, wanting more.
It stung. Once, the shoes. Now this.
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Greg McBride spent a year as an Army photographer in Vietnam, then thirty years practicing law in Washington, DC, before discovering contemporary poetry in his fifties. It changed his life. In 2005 he became founding editor of the Innisfree Poetry Journal. At the age of 63, he won the Boulevard emerging poet prize. His book Porthole won the Liam Rector First Book Prize. ["Sizes" first appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review.]
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Terrific poem!
Posted by: S. Campbell | October 17, 2021 at 11:58 AM
brilliantly crafted poem, excellent!
Posted by: lally | October 17, 2021 at 12:08 PM
Charged with emotion, so skillfully rendered
Posted by: David Salner | October 17, 2021 at 01:27 PM
Tremendous poem. Not a wasted, unnecessary word. I especially love the litany of the dad's doings--a life vividly captured. It is a poem that avoids simplistic sentimentality, always a trap in parent poems. I enjoyed the warm photo of the poet and his father, too.
Posted by: Emily Fragos | October 17, 2021 at 01:45 PM
Beautiful poem. Very tender.
Posted by: Eileen | October 17, 2021 at 02:58 PM
I love this poem. So poignantly evocative in so few words. Congratulations on a great honor. Dubs
Posted by: Bruce Wallace | October 17, 2021 at 04:04 PM
I'd call this poem a diamond, but a diamond is not a living thing and this is
Posted by: gracecavalieri | October 17, 2021 at 05:13 PM
Made my heart skip a beat.
Posted by: Alice Mayer Wenger | October 17, 2021 at 07:32 PM
Greg, what a moving poem about a father-son relationship. I’m sure you still have the ring, stored in a safe place and brought out every now and then. It is a symbol of so much. You’re lucky to have it. Thanks for the poem.
Posted by: Anne Harding Woodworth | October 17, 2021 at 10:22 PM
Wonderful poem.
Posted by: Eamonn Wall | October 18, 2021 at 01:15 PM
I echo the warm-hearted comments, and compliment Grace Cavalieri for her beautiful formulation. Is Mr McBride still with us? The past tense makes me think otherwise, but one can always hope.
Posted by: David Lehman | October 18, 2021 at 02:02 PM
It seems it was the passing of 30 years that made the clustering of memories so poignant.
Posted by: Peter Kearney | October 18, 2021 at 06:08 PM
Beautiful. The sense of being unable to fill his fathers ring says everything. Wow.
Posted by: Clarinda | October 18, 2021 at 11:15 PM
I write, first, to assure David that I am indeed still among you and fully expect to be for many years to come. Also to thank all these readers who have warmed my heart with their receptions to this little poem. It seemed a trifle to me as I began, but found its way in short order. Speaking of which, he was 5'6" but he always seemed huge to me. My father was quite a character. I've written other poems about him, and prose as well. One point of interest is that over the years he wrote hundreds of humorous, end-rhymed poems, which he sent off to the various women he knew throughout his life, including back to grammar school in American Falls, Idaho, where he and his ten siblings were born and raised.
Special thanks to Terence Winch for including me in this wonderful series of fine poems.
Best wishes to all. Greg
Posted by: Greg McBride | October 19, 2021 at 11:30 AM
Greg---Thanks for this excellent footnote to the poem.
Posted by: Terence Winch | October 19, 2021 at 11:35 AM
Thank you, Greg, for replying in the affirmative! Kudos on the poem and its enthusiastic reception by our readers. Terence's taste is incomparable. Onward!
Posted by: David Lehman | October 19, 2021 at 11:47 AM
On the mark!
Posted by: Maureen | October 19, 2021 at 06:16 PM
Terse, tactile, the heft of the thing felt in my own hand.
Posted by: Gerald Fleming | October 21, 2021 at 12:48 AM
Nice poem here Greg. A sense of the inner sense, and that never-lost connection.
Posted by: George Moore | October 29, 2021 at 04:42 PM