EMILY AS I AM QUICKENED

I am willing to be broken
down even
more than a deseeded plum

is broken down
in the fist of my father.
Let me begin again.

I was broken
far before I ever met Emily.
Now, when I move fast

for her I leave pieces
of myself in the past. I know
if I can arrive

as a young man arrives,
she will cradle
what’s left of me.

I am not wasted
in her hands. I am the pulp
she calls actual fruit.

EMILY AS I IMAGINE ANN TOWNSEND’S GARDEN DURING AN OHIO WINTER

I don’t need a century
to know that some blooms
hold on longer

than they should
& that winter is always a cushion
before it’s a burial.

No matter. The garden
is always a garden.
There are more

than a few women that
live in defiance of all seasons.
They decide which of us

temporary champions
to raise up in good heat.
They know which

burials to make permanent.
I can’t tell you which season
they’ll decide is my last.

I do know not to carve my name
into any trees
on any land they might own.

EMILY AS A THIN BONE

I’d expect my throat
to be seized

by any real proximity
to her marrow.

Darren Demaree poems have appeared, or are scheduled to appear, in numerous magazines/journals, including Hotel Amerika, Diode, North American Review, New Letters, Diagram, and the Colorado Review.

He is the author of eleven poetry collections, most recently 'Emily As Sometimes the Forest Wants the Fire' (June 2019, Harpoon Books). He is the Managing Editor of the Best of the Net Anthology and Ovenbird Poetry.

He is currently living and writing in Columbus, Ohio with his wife and children.