United States, (contemporary)
Prodigal’s Brother
- The kid’s dropped in
- from nowhere,
- still smelling
- like pig shit,
- and my father shouts,
- “See? He’s returned to us
- from the dead!
- Set a feast!”
- My father has forgotten
- his nights of weeping.
- I have not forgotten
- the sneers
- in the marketplace
- as I went about
- my father’s business
- while he withered to silence.
- Now I am to rejoice
- and understand.
- Tell me,
- what gives more joy?
- To have love
- and keep it?
- Or to lose love
- and have it return?
About the Poet:
Laurel Szymkowiak, United States, (contemporary), is a poet, operations manager and HIPAA privacy officer. She has taught upper elementary school, managed youth soccer, and worked as the operations manager and HIPAA privacy officer for a small corporation where she currently consults. She lives in Ligonier, Pennsylvania.
Her poems have been published in US 1 Poet, Voices from the Attic, Rune Literary Journal, Del Sol Review, Gyroscope, Perihelion, Loyalhanna Review and elsewhere.
She has been part of the Madwomen in the Attic writing community since 2012. The Madwomen in the Attic program has valued women’s work as writers, dreamers and architects of society, advocating for and empowering a diverse community of women by creating a space for writing, the open exchange of ideas, and the reading and publication of women’s literature. [DES-04/22]