Many thanks to Clare MacQueen, editor of MacQueen’s Quinterly, for nominating my poem, Give Them All to Me, for the Best of the Net Anthology. Here is the poem:

Give Them All to Me

But if somehow you could pack up your sorrows…

—Richard and Mimi Fariña*

It was the year of chili dogs
and reheated beans
at the encampment
under the interstate—
between the smoldering forest fire
and the sad little carnival
in the supermarket parking lot.

The year of departed parents,
of locust and gypsy moths,
of tearful love songs
picked on a guitar
held together by tape,
with voice and harmony
hollow with sorrow.

The year of counting coins,
bottles, and cans,
and playing on corners
for dimes and quarters.
Dinners warmed over Sterno
and nickel bags
in the alley beside the liquor store.

The year of sitting handcuffed
in the back
of a patrol car—
broken teeth chattering—
gigantic shadows
in the blossoming light
of cities burning.

The year I helped you carry
our brother home.
Cares and all,
he was less of a burden
than starlight.
That year he finally slept
through the night.

*Publisher’s Note:

Epigraph is from the song “Pack Up Your Sorrows” written by Richard Fariña and Pauline Marden (the eldest of the three Baez sisters: Pauline, Joan, and Mimi). Richard and Mimi Fariña performed the song along with others on Rainbow Quest (Episode 16, 26 February 1966), hosted by Pete Seeger. The show was taped two months before Richard’s untimely death in a motorcycle accident on 30 April 1966, Mimi’s twenty-first birthday.