EMILY AS A BOSC PEAR

There is a true shape
displaced
& claimed

by the delusion
& the delusion’s comrade
& if all that soil

still tastes honeyed
amidst
that claim

that all love is fruit,
then whatever
skin is leftover,

that is the skin
Emily is wearing.
She will

always be
a visiting blood
held together

by my poor
metaphors. She drips
& I call it juice.

She sings
& I call it a garden.
I open my eyes

& I know all
that’s been ruined
is my understanding.

EMILY AS MORE THAN SHE LOVED ME

Light fell.
I am
in the light!

EMILY AS WHAT I WITNESSED I WILL SURELY CHANGE IN THIS POEM

I don’t understand
how stubborn life
can be. They told
me my child might
be dead. They let
me listen to her heart.

They showed me
her lungs working.
They said she could
be dead. She was
an absence until
she was an engine

that replaced me,
my continuing book
& they said
we might both be
dead. Four women
took a knife to her

un-tucking. I don’t
understand why
they waited a week
after they told me
we were all dead.
She cried

an hour ago
& I don’t understand
how I’m supposed
to keep living
when they told me
about our ending.

Darren C. Demaree is the author of eight poetry collections, most recently “Two Towns Over”, which was selected the winner of the Louise Bogan Award from Trio House Press. He is the recipient of a 2018 Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award, and the Nancy Dew Taylor Award from Emrys Journal. He is the Managing Editor of the Best of the Net Anthology and Ovenbird Poetry. He is currently living in Columbus, Ohio with his wife and children.