Friday, January 31, 2003

Poem of the Week

Back then we were living in an old farmhouse on the hotel grounds. I had just graduated; we were recently married. The summer boys had not yet joined us on the slate patio and peelingpaint porch, our low-rent couches and floors. This really happened.



Fractured


She is crying when you get there:
you watch her cradle the cardboard box
and do not ask her why the goldfish bowl

is on the patio. Inside the box
the mourning dove or fieldmouse
struggles against flannel and tape;

your wife says its heart is speeding up
when she means to say slowing down.
Her lips move slower than her words,

leaving a backlog of speech. Fractured,
you try to recover your sanity
framed in the doorway like a Picasso

while like a starving cannibal
your wife's empathic heart consumes itself.

May 19, 1998




a collection of original poems

posted by boyhowdy | 10:19 AM |

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