ALEXIS POPE
I GUESS IT’S TOO LATE TO LIVE ON THE FARM
Or thoughts I wake up with after
Not long enough sleep but long enough
To sweat the day’s anxiety til we’re both
Damp & the daughter tells me it’s too early
To talk & sure I agree but I’m in
The shit of this & she can’t be
A support system built from the branches
Of my own body plus his, the other
Gone in the dark of another morning
I leave the Lorazepam on my desk
Think about it all day the sudden death
Of one man & the temporarily permanent
Loss of another but all day yesterday
I held to the new one as if I’d fall
And maybe I would but I haven’t let
Myself yet all these men all these children
All these bodies existing together
It’s February in New York & I’ve been
Far from what I called home for years
Now I haven’t cried more than three minutes
About the recently dead, but I’ve thought
About leaving the city for a new one
So I guess it’s too late or I am not
Late enough because I’m still tired
Or trying to leave & the ceiling here
Crackles & drops the dust of maybe
One hundred years won’t be long
Enough to figure out what I’m getting
At is there are children & we were children
And I am so totally frightened of this man
Leaving but I won’t let on that I am not
A completely strong woman because I am
A completely strong woman & I named
My daughter after a completely strong woman
And if I repeat it long enough I might
Find it all to be true or find
That it’s still too late to be
Exactly where & who I meant