anchor
Melissa Dickey
here I am chewing carrot patties
a smell like rotten fruit in the house
let me wish it in your ear
will I mistake vagueness for profundity again?
I halfway understood and it was romantic
outside, spotlight like a fake moon
is there a code language, then?
up in the sky as if painted
the airplane now fuchsia now violet
the lead river, boys singing to their phones
the child wants to know where the moth flew
says I want to live with you forever
an empty socket stares out
old rain spreads in the gutter
the oleander grows and grows like trash
never nothing
on a day like this where even
the dogs seem to sing
how can one bear to be dark
the body doesn’t wonder
what we want
but one goes
to the expensive
grocery one argues
with one’s husband
and wishes to be right
about something
also wrong
I hear a couple having
the same conversation
we had once
enough to say
we used to be one way
we’re different now
we teach our kid
not to play
with what’s dangerous
I’ve longed for my own
solitary body I’ve longed
for kids too and
even a different you
I wish I were wrong
about that I wish
Melissa Dickey is the author of The Lily Will (Rescue Press 2011). Her poems and reviews have appeared in Puerto del Sol and KROnline. Rescue Press will publish her second book of poems, What Were Woods, in spring 2016. Currently, she lives in Deerfield, MA, with her husband and three children.