Stir
Next
to you in the
green blue-
grass, I could
almost trust
that we
had sunk
deep
into the flesh
of some other
But in this
light of not quite
mourning,
when I wake, blue-
faced and buried
beneath your bed
of thin nails,
I have become
nothing
more than skin,
ten half-
moons, blue
memory.
*****************
I've included this poem here for my friend, Leigh, because I know she's been concerned with some of her work in and of couplets and has been grappling with craft. I wrote this poem during a very rough time in my life. My marriage was falling apart; I was trying to get through a difficult and demanding graduate program; I was trying to be a good mother for my young son; I was just in the beginning of what would be a horrible and all-consuming, years-long struggle with serious alcoholism. Quite frankly, I'm surprised I actually came out on the other side of all that. But, hey, we've all got our battle scars... Right?
