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Lines Found upon Moving out of the Old House
by Natalie Jones
after Anne Bradstreet, to an extent
First we moved the big dresser, the one you said
felt as though it held the heaviest words
of all our arguments. It was when
one loose drawer opened on the stairs
that the love sonnets fell out.
The furniture holds our secretswhat I mean
to say is your love sonnets, my dear poet
were not written for me.
They were not written to the memory
of our early days or the possibility
of younger women, but there were pages of
all these poems about Florida, a
description of an ocean escape and
never looking back. I will never know
what the thought of a horizon of sunshine
held for you, only that in this one
brown wooden box you had piled
true parts of a certain kind of betrayal:
a sailboat, a solitary freedom.
This, far worse, even, than those old hurtful words
like dust from each of our mouths which
at the time I was sure were
as bad as it could get.
First we moved the big dresser.
Second your love sonnets to Florida fell out.
05/22/2006 Posted on 05/22/2006
Copyright © 2010 Natalie Jones
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