Sudden cold or the sudden sense of having been cold for a long time
He said he was getting back some things that had been lost like what
Love oh great looking out across the river he wouldn’t meet my eyes either
Something flashed up and fell back down into the water there look no
I told him about the time I saw them feeding the crowd up out
Of the dark water of paler mouths opening closing like what
Getting the strength to say lost he was beautiful the play
Of that muscle I make you tense don’t I just under the tan skin of his jaw
I keep coming back to the surface that river your wrist I must have
Pressing my mouth I can’t look at your hands thinking of how you
Touched me hurt you a lot love like what those memories
Saying you’re wearing mallard colors after I chased to frighten
For no reason the ducks because I can’t stand still enough if I could
I would be so still you would think I would never hurt you
Screaming what was her last name what was her name
The wind-scarred surface of the water
What I'm not allowed to feel what I’m not allowed to say pressing up
As though feeding my heart is everywhere under my skin
And rising up to the surface of the water clenching and unclenching
The thick grey muscle the dense shoal of fish brought to just beneath
The surface the grotesque bouquet of their rapidly blossoming and
Shutting the crowd but as if behind glass so there was no sound
Of people screaming I feel helpless and cold saying please believe
I did not mean to hurt you you could say that to me too in Orphée
The poet presses against the mirror which wavers like water which lets him in
From The Surface: Poems (University of Illinois Press, 1991) by Laura Mullen. Copyright © 1991 by Laura Mullen. Used with the permission of the publisher.
Answers crowdsourced from the author’s Instagram. Italics denote direct quotes.
Absent parent(s)
and the man who made me
mistrust every man after.
I haven’t earned it yet—
what is love if not a salary?
The sweet treat we get
for being demure.
It feels too selfish,
too vulgar, unladylike
to gorge myself
on the moist cake of it.
I’ve got bad credit,
a prettier sibling, a rank
history of mistakes,
each one more foul
than the last. The timing
was all wrong.
The timing was right
but I was afraid
of losing it.
I am disorganized.
My brain is broken,
and it was stuck on something
I thought was love.
I’ve spit out it before
just to prove that I can.
I believe I am ugly.
and in the end,
it’s just easier this way,
familiar as a callous,
tongued over like
a cracked tooth:
suffering feels cleaner,
because if I start to believe
I actually deserve love,
I’d have to find
unacceptable all
those incapable of
giving it.
“I Asked Why Have You Denied Yourself Love” by Sierra DeMulder. Copyright 2023. Courtesy of Button Publishing Inc.
A month or twain to live on honeycomb
Is pleasant; but one tires of scented time,
Cold sweet recurrence of acceptance rhyme,
And that strong purple under juice and foam
Where the wine’s heart has burst;
Nor feel the latter kisses like the first.
Once yet, this poor one time; I will not pray
Even to change the bitterness of it,
The bitter taste ensuing on the sweet,
To make your tears fall where your soft hair lay
All blurred and heavy in some perfumed wise
Over my face and eyes.
And yet who knows what end the scythed wheat
Makes of its foolish poppies’ mouths of red?
These were not sown, these are not harvested,
They grow a month and are cast under feet
And none has care thereof,
As none has care of a divided love.
I know each shadow of your lips by rote,
Each change of love in eyelids and eyebrows;
The fashion of fair temples tremulous
With tender blood, and colour of your throat;
I know not how love is gone out of this,
Seeing that all was his.
Love’s likeness there endures upon all these:
But out of these one shall not gather love.
Day hath not strength nor the night shade enough
To make love whole and fill his lips with ease,
As some bee-builded cell
Feels at filled lips the heavy honey swell.
I know not how this last month leaves your hair
Less full of purple colour and hid spice,
And that luxurious trouble of closed eyes
Is mixed with meaner shadow and waste care;
And love, kissed out by pleasure, seems not yet
Worth patience to regret.
This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on June 15, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets.
I know I have been happiest at your side;
But what is done, is done, and all’s to be.
And small the good, to linger dolefully,—
Gaily it lived, and gallantly it died.
I will not make you songs of hearts denied,
And you, being man, would have no tears of me,
And should I offer you fidelity,
You’d be, I think, a little terrified.
Yet this the need of woman, this her curse:
To range her little gifts, and give, and give,
Because the throb of giving’s sweet to bear.
To you, who never begged me vows or verse,
My gift shall be my absence, while I live;
But after that, my dear, I cannot swear.
From Enough Rope (Boni & Liveright, 1926) by Dorothy Parker. This poem is in the public domain.