February 2025
Bio Note: I teach English at St. Mary’s College of Maryland. During COVID lockdown, ater talking about poetry for two or three decades, I started writing a bit of it. My poems have been published by Verse-Virtual, Rattle, HOWL New Irish Writing, and other journals.
Indissoluble
After René Bohnen’s “Ballet Above the Bay” and Rebecca West’s “Indissoluble Matrimony.” This One and That One live in the sky and my, how they quarrel as the ages go by. This One and That One, body and mind, may never part, though sorely inclined. This One and That One might do each other harm and might be the death of everyone if they did not share an arm.
U R So Cold
Regardless of how long it’s been, my Dark Lady—
O Lady of the Snows!-- I still think of you
Often—like when, just once in a while, in deepest winter,
frozen-fingered, I once more scrape
Car windows free, as I did twice daily in our driveway and at the
Rush Rhees lot, under a gun-metal sky, when you were my
Home. We threw out the ice scraper when we moved from you—
just dropped it, our eyes dancing, in the Wegman’s goodwill bin—
Even though we knew there’d be a few frosty mornings in Maryland;
and we had no regrets when we bought a new scraper--
Symbolism’s worth more than that when you are
twisting in the tunnels, thirsty for light,
Trying to be free of the frigid tyranny of the Center.
Too dramatic? Maybe. It was a job.
Excuse my rudeness, then, O Lady Eastman,
Lady of Garbage Plates, standing in your own shadow,
Reigning by the lake—we owe you, after all: You didn’t kill us.
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