[two poems]

In the past, I’ve shared some poems that I enjoyed, ones that particularly resonated with me. I’m going to post two  tonight, but wanted to clarify that they don’t necessarily refer to any certain situations in my life. I just like them. Enjoy. =)

[eight ball]

It was fifty cents a game
       beneath exhausted ceiling fans,

the smoke’s old spiral.  Hooded lights
       burned distant, dull. I was tired, but you

insisted on one more, so I chalked
       the cue–the bored blue–broke, scratched.

It was always possible
       for you to run the table, leave me

nothing. But I recall the easy
       shot you missed, and then the way

we both studied, circling–keeping
       what you had left me between us.

[metaphor]

We didn’t know what woke us–just
       cold moving, lighter than our breathing.

The world bound by an icy ligature,
       our house was to the bat a warmer

hollowness that now it could not
       leave.  I screamed for you to do something.

So you killed it with the broom,
       cursing, sweeping the air. I wanted

you to do it–until you did.

—from Late Wife, by Claudia Emerson