“Compensatory Daemon” and “From One Child’s Partner”

“Compensatory Daemon” and “From One Child’s Partner”

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Compensatory Daemons

One heart one bod

experience at first handsy

escalating intimacy

farty party not showering

for weeks, only ate

canned meat out of metal

tins then when gone

survived on boiled grass

as well as tree bark

six o'clock foreshadow

deep longing now depart

our bath tubby sorrow

still purpose-built Gerry

very glad happened

although since then s/he

stayed in their room

chocked with mangled

embroidered doilies

oy vey iz mir just vapes

oh connives to bring

other woe/men together.

From One Child’s Partner

“We will be glad to see you!

I know now’s a sad time.

All my love & condolences.”

Bittersweet what feels

like almost-eighty-year-old’s

new get-used-to-it era

family shall congregate for

Pesach flanked by two

of our best + longest friends.

About the Author

Gerard Sarnat

Late-phase often graphic poet arrived in seventh decade, aphorist, humorist or sometimes meanderist; Gerard Sarnat’s a multiple Pushcart/Best of Net Award nominee. Activism Through Poetry: How Gerard Sarnat Uses Verse as a Form of Protest is a 2025 retrospective. His work’s been widely published; including four collections; by Rattle, London Arts-Based Research Centre, Israel Association of Writers in English, The Nature of Our Times/Poets For Science, Gravity of the Thing, Brooklyn Review, Tokyo Poetry Journal, Gargoyle, New Delta Review, Buddhist Review, New York Times, Oberlin, St. John’s University, Northwestern, Yale, Pomona, Harvard, Missouri Baptist, Stanford, Dartmouth, Penn, Columbia, Grinnell, Johns Hopkins, NYU, Brown, North Dakota, McMaster, Maine, British Columbia/Toronto/Chicago, Virginia and Alabama university presses. He’s a Harvard Medical School-trained physician, Stanford professor, healthcare CEO. Currently, he’s devoting energy and resources to dealing with climate justice, serving on Climate Action Now’s board. Sarnat’s belonged to the longest-running U.S. Jewish-Palestinian Dialogue Group. Gerry’s been married since 1969 and has three kids, six grandsons — and looks forward to future granddaughters.