Find and share the perfect poems.
Light drifts across the ceiling as if we are under water —whoever would approach you you changed the comer You holding on to the front of my coat with both hands, the last time I saw you —I felt your death coming close —the change in your red lips You gave me your hand. You pulled me out of the ground.
Copyright © 2018 by Jean Valentine. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on January 18, 2018, by the Academy of American Poets.
Click the icon above to listen to this audio poem.
you leapt sometimes
you walked away sometimes
that time on the phone you
couldn’t get your breath
I leapt but couldn’t get to you
I caught the brow that bid the dead
I caught the bough that hid
I’m, you know, still here,
tulip, resin, temporary—
In a circle of 12 winter trees
I’m hunched
Remembering being fled from
—Who gave me this wool sweater?
So it please you life, we won’t go alone—
Next year will be better.
Remember that white tree?
The white underpaint of the government.
The country of bone.
In memory of Michael Brown