You weren’t in a box
the army sent home from aboard.
Or those epics that Hollywood turned out.
You were simply a prime example
of knowing how to follow orders.
You were no housekeeper
but you could iron a uniform
so that no crease showed
and you sure could fold a flag.
You may not have known
where the bodies are buried
but you remember where they fell.
You bedded down in trenches.
You crossed a field
knowing full well that it was mined.
You polished your shoes while afraid.
You clung to your rifle when homesick.
In action, your thoughts were of home.
At home, your thoughts were of action.
You never complained.
Except about the rations.
You didn’t know he was just a boy.…
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early before daybreak I wander through our house, the
floorboards creak to remind me that you died
I look for your silhouette, hear ice in your glass
and feel your hands sliding across my bare back and thighs
I may never feel that I was enough
our discord longed for the hours and days of
perfectly timed harmony
the line of your jaw and depth of your need
left me reeling every time, you shook your head and told
me there was no one quite like me
in the night I still wait for you, quietly
pushing away your last photograph
I try not to remember the way your voice sounded, and
regret that I couldn’t tell you about Jim Harrison
– Heather Brager…
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I was on a bus with some old ladies,
driving really fast
because the border was closing.
The bus pulled into an empty lot
surrounded by trees,
and the trees were blown to bits,
and I thought We’ll just have to run for it
to make it through on time.
I ran to the store
to get some bread rolls,
and the store was blown to bits,
and I thought Oh, it has started,
I gotta get those rolls.…
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On my white windowsill
among dainty tea cups,
a ceramic bird house, a
blue and white vase from France,
lies something dead.
As he flew past, for it is an insect,
was he dazzled by these objets
d’art as he sought to free himself
from the confines of the house?
The crane fly is a beauty
has he procreated already?
He lies folded up like an
origami soldier,
diaphanous wings at rest.
A body so slender
you wonder how
all the parts fit inside.…
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for Anne Sexton
A boat in the garage, one last sail, one last row. Inside out finished, words through the seam, bedlam in grey and green.
Those matches never blew out the darkness. Never lit the street, never lit the dream. Never dammed the beckoning sea. The vessel. The tethered boat at the edge. Never sealed the fracture, the malacia, the fault between role and creator.
The lapping Charles calls one final, fifth time. Hysteria sets in, welcome in this place, manic in this space, carbon monoxide the elixir. Red cells swim like fish back and forth, at last the awful row.
A boat in the garage, one last sail, one last row. One final, fifth time.
– Ti Sumner
Author’s Note: I wrote “46 Anne” in response to Anne Sexton’s poem “45 Mercy Street.”…
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Affixed to your bedpost was
some mask I had made you
for Halloween maybe three years
ago, before I started to
scare you and before
I ruined holidays and important dates
and made you want to start
taking down all of your calendars
and reminders from your walls.
I spent an entire afternoon
thinking of you and of the sentimental
value in making something by hand
that would coincidentally outlast
our relationship,
and I got very caught up in the music
I had on and how much I
adored you,
and that the mask looked
sort of silly in the end,
like someone much younger had
been painting and adding shapes,
though it was coming from
a part of me only you came to understand.…
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We sat together
on opposites ends of
a booth near the window
of a fast food chain,
miraculously open on
Christmas Day,
for those in the services,
those who drive trucks,
and those who find
themselves alone,
together,
on opposite ends
of the booths.
We’re nearly sixty
years apart,
he’s lived my life
four times,
but our jokes are
timeless, and our
timing is youthful
and exciting.…
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