Two Poems:

And Day Brought Back My Night

It was so simple: you came back to me
And I was happy. Nothing seemed to matter
But that. That you had gone away from me
And lived for days with him — it didn't matter.
That I had been left to care for our old dog
And house alone — couldn't have mattered less!
On all this, you and I and our happy dog
Agreed. We slept. The world was worriless.

I woke in the morning, brimming with old joys
Till the fact-checker showed up, late, for work
And started in: Item: It's years, not days.
Item: you had no dog. Item: she isn't back,
In fact, she just remarried. And oh yes, item: you
Left her, remember? I did? I did. (I do.)

Snake Man

I in your presence resemble a hognose snake
           Lying on the spadelike scales

Of its back, in farinaceous dust, like a rope
           Of dough. And when you flip me

With the toe of a shoe, I do not (oh no) flip
           Back, for unlike that saphead

The hognose, I know many positions in which
           To be dead. And when you smile

To describe, in your up-to-date patois, all love
           As aleatory, or

Desire and indifference as twin winnowers,
           Then I with my upturned nose

(Keeping my venom even then to myself) hiss
           Softly at your shoelaces.

Geoffrey Brock
Weighing Light
New Criterion Poetry Prize
Ivan R. Dee, Publisher

Copyright © 2005 by Geoffrey Brock.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.

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