Poemish

I'm reposting this poem from the archives because I was checking my site stats and noticed that my page was currently being viewed by someone in Alaska, and I can only imagine that it is Kevin Maier. So I check the archive he's viewing and the post at the top of the page is me holding a piece of bacon. Kevin's a well-known bacontarian, so I'm pretty sure it's him. In any case, this month of posting had me going through a particularly difficult break-up, and also included cheesesteaks and bacon. The good with the bad, I suppose. IN any case, this poem interests me because I don't really recall writing it and I'm fairly certain that I never did anything to it other than write it and post it to the blog. The date that serves as a title tells me that it was written on the day of or after the break-up in question. It's odd to be emotionally and even intellectually removed from that time and then run across an artifact such as this. Anyway. Here it is.

*


4/22/05

The song is an evasion
but the singer wears a loose tired skin
and the pale woman
tries to smooth it, tries not to hum.

The song is an excuse
for shortcomings, lack of forethought,
an inability to feel complete
-ly. The absent lover breaks a bowl.

The song, oft-repeated, sung over,
hung on its own notes, drunk,
now stale. She takes up
arms. Faithful is not the same as true.

The song is over, the singer sung
almost out of being, the bottom rung
of the laddered scale no longer visible.
What once was multiplied
is now quite easily divisible.