poetry from Andy Christ

Philip and the Poet

Remember Sheherezade, the character
who had to tell stories or die? Well I’m not
Sheherezade. My loquaciousness
is not due to a horror story, although
my sister is a Stephen King fan.
This is my play time, and you, dear Reader,
are my imaginary friend. Where shall we go?
To my childhood? My teen years?
The Oval Office? Grocery store shelves?
I want to tell you about Philip. I saw
him almost every day when I worked
as a lifeguard. In the suburb of Cleveland
where we grew up, lots of kids would go
swimming at the public pools. Like anything else
that needs organization, the pools were fenced in.
Philip would run with his little nine-year-old legs,
bare feet over rough concrete, from the fence
to the deep end of the pool. I guess it was about
twelve feet. There goes Philip in my memory,
trotting toward the water, calling out
“To the Netherlands!” or maybe “To China!”
and, diligently holding his nose, he dives
into the nine feet of water. He stays close
to the pool’s edge, and he always tries
to touch the line at the bottom. Each time
he succeeds, he pauses at the surface
to attend to the pressure in his head.
Then he’s back out again, walking to the fence,
dripping unconsciously. Now and then
he says something to his imaginary friend.
How simple it is to be nine years old. All
those people around, all that sunshine, and
Philip prefers his imaginary friend and
imaginary trips around the world. And if he
got too far out, someone would jump in after
him. Now I’m a poet and we have
imaginary friends too (they’re called readers), and
we dive into our unconscious and come up
with something beautiful. Our imaginary friends
will go anywhere with us.



Andy Christ