Poem 4, Sonnet

Sonnet

After watching the video of your lover
sleeping with a man, first you wondered
why it had taken you so long to realize
it wasn’t you you had been watching,
rather some bastard she brought to your bed,
some son-of-a-bitch who didn’t even have
the dignity to smooth out the sheets afterward
or wash his hands before using your house phone
to call who-knows-who. Sitting there, watching
the video with volume this time, you hear the way she goes
into everything with such enthusiasm; you resign yourself
and second you decide maybe it’s unreasonable

to expect much more. Third, you put on a pot of tea,
get out two mugs and wait for her to come home.




--marlo barrera
september 2009

Poem 3, You, Birch

You, Birch

If I were
a mushroom,
I would be
the scaber stalk
bolete which does not
keep well and which begins
dying as soon as it leaves
the birch it grew
from. No bolete
is poisonous except
for the red ones
that stain blue.

I would not
stain but would be
the closest to red
without being red.

The mushroom grows from the roots
but I think if I were one, I might grow
close to the bark, some dried up place,
to deceive. I’m not saying I’ve done nothing,
more like my want for you is debilitating.



--September 2009
Marlo Barrera