I washed my hair the morning I got married put
on
red boots found license woke C. set off for City
Hall
had ceremony drove to Fairway got cups of tea
sat
at bench on boardwalk watched man & woman
at
next bench come almost to blows over her having
put
ketchup on his egg sandwich too bad they couldn’t
just
trade hers had the sausage Don’t ever put ketchup
on
my egg sandwich he clenched You handed it to me
she
cawed meanwhile their aged father paying no heed
was
pulling out bits of paper one after the other That’s not
it
he’d say That’s one from four years ago beautifully
mild
he searched on his wife I bet kept track of the list
when
she was alive bluish mist lifted sank on the water a
statue
(Liberty) slid us a wave from way across the bay.
Found this poem in the New Yorker, August 24 2009. Here it is for those who like to read it that way. Epithalamium links well to the poem I posted last week by Vana Manasiadis because she is a fan of Anne Carson and her genre-busting style. Through Vana, I became a fan too. Autobiography of Red is one of my favourite books.
Apologies to those I promised a sonnet to - especially Tuesday Poet Fifi Colston whose artwork inspired me. I thought I'd nailed it yesterday but realised I hadn't quite got the rhyme scheme down, and have since spent hours and hours and hours over the thing but, at 1.09 am on Tuesday morning, I am bailing.
I feel the poem lacks weight and it's not helped by the way the rhyme seems to trivialise the message. I am tempted to take it back to its raw, non-sonnet beginnings and post that. But no, it leaned so strongly towards the sonnet form that I really had to take it there. Maybe next week.
Do go to Tuesday Poem for more poems - Janis Freegard is this week's editor.
