At least you’re not raging anymore she says
well into their third pint, as they sit on the patio
trading divorce stories.
Maybe it’s their age, maybe it’s ours,
but I don’t want to be like them,
having just become comfortable with small silences
across the table, as we play scrabble, wanting
the possibility of a close score, a perfect ending,
not some hundred point gap. A year and a half later
and I’m feeling better about it she says
though I still have that impulse to google
him late at night. Sometimes I forget
what it’s like, curled around anger so hot and fast,
picking the scab open again. How could I
and still walk down the street
arms linked with another woman
convinced this time, we’d play it right.
---
Okay, I give up for today. I'm hot and cranky and nothing better is going to come.
4 comments:
Wow - some good powerful stuff in here. Love "a close score... not some hundred point gap"
I wasn't clear who "them" were though - is someone observing two people or is it a reference by one of the people about others? And is it two women or a man and a woman?
I agree with Polly, and found this powerful. I loved the reference to the game(s), and I loved "Sometimes I forget/what it’s like, curled around anger so hot and fast,/picking the scab open again".
I think that's what the poem is doing. I believe it works, although I agree again with Polly about the confusion of the pronouns. I assumed the "they" were being observed, but the "I" in this line confuses me: "though I still have that impulse to google". Maybe quotation marks would clear up the confusion?
The way I see it, two women (a couple, labelled woman #1 & #2) are watching two women (not a couple, labelled woman #3 & #4) discussing the failed relationship of, say, #3.
Nice and lean, missy. Maybe hot and cranky was the mood this one needed...
Ah the pronouns. Yes. I think it can be solved by a bit more info up front. We (a couple) are observing them (a non-couple). I guess now that women can marry each other, it can be read multiple ways. I'll work on that.
The other thing about Blogger (beside em dashes) is it doesn't keep your italics, which helps to read the poem. But maybe I could keep the pronouns to we vs. and she (I-spoken)/they for simplification? Now does that make sense? Surely not this late at night.
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