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Another Spring 
from
a first line by Robert Bly
A lonely man once sat on a large
flat stone. The woman never sat,
flat stone or otherwise.
Lonelier, she tilted, one-cheek
cockeyed, ready to spring. Up
for the Heinz ketchup, rye bread.
Up for a prune Danish. He'd grunt,
roll a bloodshot eye. She read him
like the Kaballah: more soup,
another napkin, another
spoonful of gravy, pressing
a ducky pond in his mashed potatoes
the way he liked.
Look how you sit—half on
half off, he'd say, jabbing her
with his fork. She'd laugh.
Their two girls laughed, then chased
their peas around their plates.
Until—what's dessert?
and where's the mail? And up
her body clicked. Up.
A regular Jill-in-the-box, sleek
as seal, a tight bright braid.
A polished stone mono-buttocked
in a girdle, her two cheeks
together there must be no
crack showing not a sign of it.
Pantoum for My Father
My father sleeps
They have taken out the tubes
No more whimpering
Railing The worm in the stew
They have taken out the tubes
We are at the business of it
No whimpering No worm in the stew
It will not take long
Listen to the business of it
Count the spaces between breaths
It can't take much longer
You can measure by the clock
Collapsing between breaths
Like the engine of sledgehammers
In the clock of my childhood
And everything he's said or done—
An engine of sledgehammers—
Is reduced to nothing but jangle
All he's done to me and said
Slipping off like bracelets
Reduced to nothing but jangle
Railing at Death My mind's not right
Slipping away easy as bracelets
My father sleeps
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Alice
Friman has new work appearing in Ohio Review, Boulevard,
Prairie Schooner, New Letters, and North Dakota Quarterly.
Her most recent collection is 