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:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/mark-doty

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:

https://www.poetryinternationalweb.net/pi/site/poet/item/14531/11737/Piotr-Sommer