CARINA FINN
To Her Coy Mistress
I guess it’s too late to live on the farm,
having taken my face
out of the book
just long enough to meet my wife in a
trash can in an alley in Manhattan,
having given up on the pastoral with its
abject weather patterns.
I wear a ring on my fingerless gloves
with so much pride I actually like
this life. A woman at my side and at
my back and at my breast, Mommy,
Mother, darling.
I guess it’s too late to live on the farm
with my denim-shirted wife
and our chickens,
there is art in museums and galleries
there are pay stubs, direct deposit, and
my hole is the holiest place in the city,
and my instant pink sunrise
the prettiest picture. The view from my
window takes a bridge into
consideration as a limit
of what the poet
might see, the
genius.
Dark night. Electra blinks
the East River into existence. Chatty
as I grow older
winter never ends, it never will, and
so many homeless died
in the storm.
I guess
it’s too late to live on the farm. In-
stead let us breathe while we may.
Let us turn in circles
going from end to its opposite.
We put so many
bits of our bodies in the folds of this
couch let’s sell the couch. We put
so many bits of our hearts in this
soup let us eat until
we are well past full.