Red Hen Press

It is by whisper truer things are told.
Words have their echo when only barely heard.

IT IS THE NIGHT
That lets me down.

When the house seems unknown,

the body next to me unreachable.

Some sinister recess has commenced

and I must wait it out. Row my boat

hard against the arcing tide, keep my head,

pay the sandman twice. Welcome the nightly

oblivion that sees me through those no-good hours

between two and four when every failure rushes in—

every folly confirmed.

Big questions slated on the bathroom wall.

Harassing every dust mote for answers; what have I done?

Or worse, what haven’t I?

This stupor could have no future.

I am as flat and dumb as the kitchen floor.

As heedless as the doors.

As silent as the spoons

There’s nothing worse than loving someone who doesn’t love you back. It’s like loving someone who has died, except sometimes you have to see them in public and acknowledge how they don’t love you back

Why can’t the night keep dark as well
the places day keeps hidden from me?
It is in black that I can tell
how deep the falls that rise around me.
Entombed I am. None can dispel
the jagged darkness that surrounds me.
Why can’t the night keep dark as well
the places day keeps hidden from me?

she is not the essay on Mayakovsky;

One side says slow, the other stop.

Joy and sorrow always run like parallel lines.

I wanted to be the penitent.

I thought I deserved all the pain I could feel.

Joy and sorrow always run like parallel lines.

Every day is long

Being alone is what I know. I’ve done it most of my life