EMILY AS THE STRANGENESS GIFTS US AN UNDOING

You look for the shadow
first. You see me holding
the dead bulbs

from the back porch
that we do not know
whether to trash

or recycle. You see her
in the middle of the yard
inverting the stratiform

of our life together.
The dogs understand.
The children echo

from the side-streets.
They circle the house
until after dusk.

Each pause releases
the water from the creek.
The deer stand

underneath the city lights
& pose better
than we do.

I say my line out loud.
She looks at me to ask
why I said anything at all.

I wish we had a screen door.
She lifts her dress
to wipe her mouth.

The moisture stays there.
I refuse to go inside.
I want the agitation

to cake me in what’s coming.
If there is a song it will
be gloriously dense.

***

EMILY AS THE FIRE IN THE GRASS

The brush
is the blood.
We rise

to it always.
The grasses
our neighbor

loves to trim
we burn at
the wrong time.

The smoke
is for us.
We hunger

& trudge
through cold
seasons

to surprise
the details.
I never see

her start it,
but I smell her
for days after.

***

Darren Demaree’s poems have appeared, or are scheduled to appear in numerous magazines/journals, including Hotel Amerika, Diode, North American Review, New Letters, Diagram, and the Colorado Review. He is the author of seventeen poetry collections, most recently ‘clawing at the grounded moon’ (August 2022, April Gloaming), and is the Editor in Chief of the Best of the Net Anthology and Managing Editor of Ovenbird Poetry. He lives and writes in Columbus, Ohio with his wife and children.