Robert Fillman

Robert Fillman is the author of House Bird (Terrapin, 2022) and the chapbook November Weather Spell (Main Street Rag, 2019). His next collection, The Melting Point, is forthcoming from Broadstone Books in 2025. Individual poems have appeared in Salamander, Spoon River Poetry Review, Tar River Poetry, Verse Daily, and elsewhere. He teaches at Kutztown University in eastern Pennsylvania. www.robertfillman.com

Rhyme and Reason

I will give you a nickel
if you tickle my pickle,
that is the first thing that comes
to mind when I think about
Donny Beitler, our class clown,
the schoolyard rhyme he’d chant while
chasing girls on the playground
as they shrieked and squealed, not how
he was always in trouble,
the kid, without fail, sent down
to the principal’s office,
teachers left shaking their heads
while the rest of us snickered
and howled, just relieved that it
wasn’t us, not his piss-stained
backpack that his cat got to
one day or the b.o. smell
that followed him around, not
even the time I saw him
shirtless in the bathroom, how
I squinted my eyes so tight
I could pretend I didn’t
see him there scrubbing himself
or how his ribs jutted out,
the bruises on his white skin
like stains on bible pages,
a map of the hurt he hid
so well, those stories pushing
their way from within as he
leaned down into the sink, splashed
cool water against his face,
again and again, only
stopping now and then to stare
into the mirror, maybe
to see if I was still there,
saw the same things that he did.