by Sam Friedman
On this first day of fall,
my 84-year-old body totters
on my afternoon walk.
Acorns litter the street,
and a shattered shell lands
beside me,
straight from a gray squirrel’s mouth.
I think of my dear friends
Ania and Pasha
many thousands of miles
east of that sated squirrel,
east of that shattered shell,
and I hope and I pray
no shells land beside them
straight from a Russian drone’s mouth.
Sam Friedman is a poet, activist, and public health researcher. He has published two books of poetry and poems in a variety of magazines.
