The RetroLounge Daily Poem Thread (Thu 1/17/2008)

The Husband Tries to Write to the Disappearing Wife

I could have kept you
in the palm of my hand,
but you weren't ready.

I know I have lost
your body, dissolved into
particles, swirling

like birdsong. I should
have known when I started
sweeping twigs and bits

of fur and feather
off our floors, when our baby
liked nothing better

than chewing beetles.
Our bargain was never strong
as straw, as autumn's

last light, easily
shattered. Why is it I want
to carve you into

my palm, from pain
into memory, that I sit
up night after night

recreating—first,
the moon and moth, the white shrine—
your eyes, too bright

to be human. The songs
I write start with your hair but
end with your heart.

No poetry seems right
without your crooked smile.
Without the scrape

of your sharp teeth
against my lips, there is
no word for kiss.

Jeannine Hall Gailey

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Jeannine Hall Gailey is a Seattle-area writer whose first book of poetry, Becoming the Villainess, was recently published by Steel Toe Books. Poems from the book have appeared multiple times on NPR’s The Writers Almanac and Verse Daily. Her work has also appeared in The Iowa Review, The Columbia Poetry Review, and The Evansville Review. Her chapbook, Female Comic Book Superheroes, was published by Pudding House Press.

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:hi:

RL

That's pretty though.

:thumbsup:

:thumbsup:

RL

his disappearing wife :D

This is really lovely, though. Thanks :donut:

:hi:

Without the scrape

of your sharp teeth
against my lips, there is
no word for kiss.


sigh

RL

HUH?????

prove it!!!!!!!


:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:


:hi: :hi:


lost

You know the one...

:hi:

RL

Mmmm...this is lovely, and so sad...

These are my favorite stanzas, too:

No poetry seems right
without your crooked smile.
Without the scrape

of your sharp teeth
against my lips, there is
no word for kiss.

Thank you, sweetie...

:hug: