Marriage: A Daybook

From the window the river rinses
the dark. I twist
the wedding beads around my neck. I’ve lost
my ring, silver and antique, bought from the night market
in the other world across
the ocean, color of dull lead,
color of the pan I scrub and burn
in the sink.

*

Catullus wrote, I hate and love, and he wasn’t talking about marriage.

*

Not talking about the blacked-out
window crossed with hurricane tape,
like a movie screen, a page redacted,
your hand erasing a blackboard
with an eraser’s soft compliant body.

Copyright © 2014 by Nicole Cooley. Used with permission of the author. This poem appeared in Poem-A-Day on January 23, 2014. Browse the Poem-A-Day archive.