Week 2

The rain outside
took me back to India
in the middle of the monsoons.
It was late at night,
too late to stop thinking of you.
I remembered a song you sent me,
it was about having faith
and I listened to it too.

Being in love with you
requires a lot of listening,
waiting,
watching.
Too much so,
but it is too late to forget.

So I let the rains take me back to India
and the song take me back to you.
Maybe in an alternate life
things would have been easier for us two,
and I would have been married in Ireland
living life with you.

Week 1

I am starting a poem a week challenge for the next year. Hopefully by the time I'm 28, I should have 52 more poems.  I can't guarantee they will be good but it will be good to see where it takes me. This is week 1.

There was a time once
where I did not speak to anyone all weekend,
not real conversations anyway.
It was late August
and I was wearing a sweater,
seems like fall came early that year.
I caught the last little bit
of The Tragically Hip.
He screamed and cried
and dropped the mic.
He had brain cancer,
I had a migraine.
This is the way that pain flows,
in and out of consciousness.
He had a death sentence,
I had lost some friends,
Goes to show that maybe there isn't
that much space in the world after all.

Young Couple At Mass

I want this one day.


At Mass the just-married couple
hold hands in the pew. New to the parish,
they sit in front of an elderly pair,
soapy scent of a 40-year marriage,
and behind a family whose eight-year-old
leans under the seats to stare
at the many ankles and shoes.

They feel noticeable, awkward—
familiar amid the statue
of the Virgin and stations of the cross,
yet objects of the faithful eyes
around them. It’s true. At the base
of her neck and just below the short sleeves
of her blouse, her skin
blooms tan and healthy. It’s too much.
The mother of four three pews back
and across the aisle senses
something indecent in that sun-blonde hair
and the way their shoulders touch.

When they stand for Communion,
the young man places his hand
on the small of his wife’s back
to usher her into the aisle.
Square shoulders and crewcut,
he walks in line just inches behind her.
Despite the choir, she hears him breathing.

Albert Garcia

From June to December Summer Villanelle

You know exactly what to do—
Your kiss, your fingers on my thigh—
I think of little else but you.

It’s bliss to have a lover who,
Touching one shoulder, makes me sigh—
You know exactly what to do.

You make me happy through and through,
The way the sun lights up the sky—
I think of little else but you.

I hardly sleep-an hour or two;
I can’t eat much and this is why—
You know exactly what to do.

The movie in my mind is blue—
As June runs into warm July
I think of little else but you.

But is it love? And is it true?
Who cares? This much I can’t deny:
You know exactly what to do;
I think of little else but you.

Wendy Cope

The Sunday News

Looking for something in the Sunday paper,
I flipped by accident to Local Weddings,
Yet missed the photograph until I saw
Your name among the headings.

And there you were, looking almost unchanged,
Your hair still long, though now long out of style,
And you still wore that stiff, ironic look
That was your smile.

I felt as though we sat there face to face.
My stomach tightened. I read the item through.
It said too much about both families,
Too little about you.

Finished at last, I put the paper down,
Stung by jealousy, my mind aflame—
Hating this man, this stranger whom you loved,
This printed name.

And yet I clipped it out to put away
Inside a book like something I might use,
A scrap I knew I wouldn’t read again
But couldn’t bear to lose.

Dana Gioia