At seven I was cured
Of fast boats \u2013 Ned
Of Ned and Eileen
Had a quiet heart
Attack as if he fell
Asleep in the stern
It wasn\u2019t the conveyance
Or speed that killed him
He simply happened to be
Roaring over Pleasant
Hill Lake at the time \u2013
Still the stark association
And the depth of bodies
Of water fixed my resolve<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At nine I was cured
Of smoking after
Two timid drags
Burning sucking in
Burning coughing out
From my neighbor\u2019s
Mother\u2019s unfiltered Kools
(Which eventually wrecked
Her lungs and killed her)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At ten thundering
Flying headlong down
Quarry Chapel Road
I was unequivocally cured
Of motorcycles \u2013 a little
Boy precariously astride
Uncle Gregg\u2019s Honda 450
My skinny arms clinging
Wrapped around him
I screamed into his back
Certain I tempted death<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At thirteen
A bit more courageous
I was never quite
Cured of kisses \u2013
Girls girls girls
No matter how capricious<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At seven I was curedOf fast boats \u2013 NedOf Ned and EileenHad a quiet heartAttack as if he fellAsleep in the sternIt wasn\u2019t the conveyanceOr speed that killed himHe simply happened to beRoaring over PleasantHill Lake at the time \u2013Still the stark associationAnd the depth of bodiesOf water fixed my resolve At nine I was … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa867U-T7","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3417"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3417\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3418,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3417\/revisions\/3418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
David Sapp, writer, artist, and professor, lives along the southern shore of Lake Erie in North America. A Pushcart nominee, he was awarded Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Grants for poetry and the visual arts. His poetry and prose appear widely in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. His publications include articles in the Journal of Creative Behavior, chapbooks Close to Home and Two Buddha, a novel Flying Over Erie, and a book of poems and drawings titled Drawing Nirvana.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"