DOGGED HEARTS

Hello, and welcome to Poetry Friday! Round up is at The Writer's Armchair.

My contribution is this poem from Ellen Dore Watson's collection DOGGED HEARTS.

I LOVE THIS BOOK. It's from Tupelo Press, and it's all persona poems that illuminate small ordinary moments with inspired thought and vocabulary. It's no wonder Ellen was hailed by Library journal as one of "24 Poets for the 21st Century." I wish I'd known when I met her at Colrain how much I would later enjoy her work. Alas.

Give this one a gander:

AS IF LOVE
were cool and simple, jade against skin.
As if early gifts could negate late inattention.
The way she just stands there, tippety
with counterweights, hands jammed in pockets.
As if even my seeing them would be a thanks
I don't deserve. As if her wrists, bare as the day
I pinned them to the table, and oh her mouth,
never-ready, like the elbow she used to offer me,
to steer her smiling into the sea of smiles.
As if trust didn't sail in both directions.

- Ellen Dore Watson