by Michael Cantor
There’s something in the rules, I guess, to make
them brave the scene, dead pale, beside the jerk,
because they all endure it; none will shirk
the role, not one has said, Give me a break,
you asshole, can’t you tell how much I ache –
you’re on your own – instead, she takes her place
and stands there, shaking, life drained from her face
as hubby asks the world for time and space.
There is no way, José, I am forewarned,
you’d ever see me shame myself like that.
I change the channel, give her knee a pat,
suppress a little joke on women scorned.
I'd like to think she’d stand by me, but still,
I’ve never run for office, never will.
Michael Cantor’s full-length collection, Life in the Second Circle (Able Muse Press, 2012), was a finalist for the 2013 Massachusetts Book Award for Poetry. A chapbook, The Performer, was published in 2007; and his work has appeared in The Dark Horse, Measure, New Verse News, Raintown Review, SCR, Chimaera, The Flea, and numerous other journals and anthologies. He was also a finalist for the Nemerov (twice), Richard Wilbur and Robert Penn Warren poetry competitions; and has won the New England Poetry Club Gretchen Warren and Erika Mumford prizes. A native New Yorker, he has lived and worked in Japan, Latin America and Europe, and presently resides on Plum Island, north of Boston on the Massachusetts coast.
Tampilkan postingan dengan label wife. Tampilkan semua postingan
Tampilkan postingan dengan label wife. Tampilkan semua postingan
Kamis, 25 Juli 2013
Senin, 13 Mei 2013
WIFE SOUGHT FOR QUESTIONING IN BLAZE
by Darlene Pagan
She never imagined the sheet she lit
would curl him in its hot tongue, never
believed he wouldn’t wake in those flames,
throw back the covers, and wash his feet like
she’d been asking him every night before bed.
The air buzzed with a lightning storm.
The chickens refused to lay and no matter
how long or hard she kneaded the dough,
all morning, the loaves cooked up
dense and hard as baseball bats.
At least, no child again this month.
A photo of them as newlyweds, so young
they look like children playing dress up,
hangs in the hallway. Too stubborn to quit
a decade later and now look where it’s got them.
Black petals fall. Bits of sheet, newly caught
rise like cardinals. A door opens, the wind
roars, timbers spit and splinter until she finds
herself outside in the grass watching
lightning split a sycamore. She looks from
the tree to the body they’re pulling too late
from the burning house. She believes it
when she tells them she has no idea who he is.
Darlene Pagan teaches at Pacific University in Oregon, where she lives with her husband and sons. A book of poems, Blue Ghosts, was published with Finishing Line Press. Her poetry and essays have most recently appeared in journals such as Calyx, Hayden’s Ferry Review, The Madison Review, Poet Lore, Hiram Poetry Review, Hawaii Pacific Review, Memoir(and), Brevity, and Literal Latté, among others. Pagan recently completed a full-length poetry project tentatively titled, Setting the Fire. She loves to bike, hike, dig at the beach, walk in the rain, sing, and ride roller coasters now that her boys are just tall enough to ride.
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| Image credit: defokes / 123RF Stock Photo |
She never imagined the sheet she lit
would curl him in its hot tongue, never
believed he wouldn’t wake in those flames,
throw back the covers, and wash his feet like
she’d been asking him every night before bed.
The air buzzed with a lightning storm.
The chickens refused to lay and no matter
how long or hard she kneaded the dough,
all morning, the loaves cooked up
dense and hard as baseball bats.
At least, no child again this month.
A photo of them as newlyweds, so young
they look like children playing dress up,
hangs in the hallway. Too stubborn to quit
a decade later and now look where it’s got them.
Black petals fall. Bits of sheet, newly caught
rise like cardinals. A door opens, the wind
roars, timbers spit and splinter until she finds
herself outside in the grass watching
lightning split a sycamore. She looks from
the tree to the body they’re pulling too late
from the burning house. She believes it
when she tells them she has no idea who he is.
Darlene Pagan teaches at Pacific University in Oregon, where she lives with her husband and sons. A book of poems, Blue Ghosts, was published with Finishing Line Press. Her poetry and essays have most recently appeared in journals such as Calyx, Hayden’s Ferry Review, The Madison Review, Poet Lore, Hiram Poetry Review, Hawaii Pacific Review, Memoir(and), Brevity, and Literal Latté, among others. Pagan recently completed a full-length poetry project tentatively titled, Setting the Fire. She loves to bike, hike, dig at the beach, walk in the rain, sing, and ride roller coasters now that her boys are just tall enough to ride.
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