A Valentine That Can’t Be Sent

Rosmarie Waldrop

1935 –

1
Your singular, my love. Rehearses its absence.

You see light, hear noise, feel the warmth of the sun. Do you connect it into “day”?

You move through shards and splinters. Toward.

You are no longer possible.

2
Because, my love. The night such a vast space. And you a bird in oblique flight.

I try to hold on. To moments still ours. Even as they slip away.

Each word of yours, each gesture, gently. Once upon no more.

Do not fall again. Not even like an apple in autumn.

3
Because we say: we. We are each hour and each minute. Not altogether alone.

I have looked deep in the eyes of men and women. And feared that lastly. We make no contact.

And yet. The space between.

Can fill with love.

4
I no longer know what to think. About death. Which stands ready.

About you. A hunger hallucinating outward. From the ruins of memory.

Because yes, you. Still make my heart beat.

Irregularly. Like yours.

from In Pieces

NATURAL 	

Though not real like thought or possibility. The pattern of my reading, beginning with there was, moves into the present. Like lifting a hand unsure whether to imitate duration or mimic passage. As long as form is never less than activity it’s not how the cookie crumbles, but simply that it falls apart. Happenstance. A hat. A window. Whirling leaves. Why not trust the rest will follow? In the dream I could not see you because you thought you were hanging from a trapeze.




TONE DEEP 	

No sound is less than a sound or more.

Rosmarie Waldrop

2015

Doing

I often don’t know what to do. Or if I want to.

Dawn has long broken while I still drag my feet in the mud inside my head, hope for coffee, make a B-flat moan. To prepare the plunge into action. Or not.

Maybe I want to cast only a passing shadow. Feel like my mother’s “Thank God” when she took off her corset.

But I am worried there’s something I ought to be doing. Afraid I’ll die without having done anything. “Realized” myself, you call it, but wouldn’t that just mean limited myself? A cement mixer stuck in one motion, even if it helps build a house?

Rosmarie Waldrop

2016

Evening Sun

							for Sophie Hawkes

                                                     1

On a balcony onto the Seekonk stands. And full of thoughts of winter. My friend. And drunk with red wine I. Think of the power. Of a single word. Like for example "fact." When I know what matters. Is between.

But how with gnarled hands hold the many and how? The sun and shadow of Rhode Island? Let alone the earth?

Rosmarie Waldrop

2003

Poems

A Valentine That Can’t Be Sent

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from In Pieces

Doing

Evening Sun

Poems

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A Valentine That Can’t Be Sent

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