Tuesday 8 May 2018

Tuesday Poem: "The Embrace" by Mark Doty


You weren’t well or really ill yet either;
just a little tired, your handsomeness

tinged by grief or anticipation, which brought

to your face a thoughtful, deepening grace.


I didn’t for a moment doubt you were dead.

I knew that to be true still, even in the dream.

You’d been out--at work maybe?--

having a good day, almost energetic.


We seemed to be moving from some old house

where we’d lived, boxes everywhere, things

in disarray: that was the
story of my dream,
but even asleep I was shocked out of the narrative


by your face, the physical fact of your face:

inches from mine, smooth-shaven, loving, alert.

Why so difficult, remembering the actual look

of you? Without a photograph, without strain?


So when I saw your unguarded, reliable face,

your unmistakable gaze opening all the warmth

and clarity of you--warm brown tea--we held

each other for the time the dream allowed.


Bless you. You came back, so I could see you

once more, plainly, so I could rest against you

without thinking this happiness lessened anything,

without thinking you were alive again.

by Mark Doty


Photo Credit: Starr Black

For more information about poet, Mark Doty, see:


Tuesday 1 May 2018

Tuesday Poem: "Out of Town" by Piotr Sommer


Years later, the water still drips—
there's no one to tighten the valve.
It courses through old pipes
down to the septic tank.

Next morning in the cellar
I start the motor with a stick.
It shakes and rumbles, and chirps—

the switch is broken is all.


At night the water arrives

illegally, undergroundly,

to the very grave where

last spring parsley sprouted,


and at the foot, beside it,

feral sorrel darkens

tastily and tartly

like clandestine sex.


The motor lifts the spirits

and returns the night's deductions.

It's morning, I hum softly—

a stranger will replace me.


In the cellar a stream of light

rinses the window grate,

it pulses, strikes the meter—

I catch my rhythm on the stairs.


And for memory's sake I hum—

as I pass the septic tank—

a fluid, underground song

about sorrel and a stranger.

by Piotr Sommer


For more information about poet, Piotr Sommer, see: