It’s now coming loose
Again, like it was
At the beginning
Of our marriage
When I feared it might slip
While swimming
In Lake Michigan.
The weight from the children’s births
Is finally gone, the body
Recalls its youthful shape;
Only the skin’s weariness
Betrays the passing of time.
What will I do with this ring
Once it is all over, the house sold
The children’s faith
In familia/ famiglia
Quartered and bartered?
I shall bury it under a tree
At West Meadow,
Where I talk to the sea
About beginnings and endings,
And where - once gone -
I shall never return.
March 22, 2022
Carmen Bugan's most recent books are the collection of poems Time Being (Shearsman, 2022), and the book of essays Poetry and the Language of Oppression: Essays on Politics and Poetics (Oxford University Press, 2021). Her prize-winning memoir, Burying the Typewriter: Childhood Under the Eye of the Secret Police (Picador, 2012), was a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week, and her new and selected poems, Lilies from America (Shearsman, 2019), was a Poetry Book Society Special Commendation
Again, like it was
At the beginning
Of our marriage
When I feared it might slip
While swimming
In Lake Michigan.
The weight from the children’s births
Is finally gone, the body
Recalls its youthful shape;
Only the skin’s weariness
Betrays the passing of time.
What will I do with this ring
Once it is all over, the house sold
The children’s faith
In familia/ famiglia
Quartered and bartered?
I shall bury it under a tree
At West Meadow,
Where I talk to the sea
About beginnings and endings,
And where - once gone -
I shall never return.
March 22, 2022
Carmen Bugan's most recent books are the collection of poems Time Being (Shearsman, 2022), and the book of essays Poetry and the Language of Oppression: Essays on Politics and Poetics (Oxford University Press, 2021). Her prize-winning memoir, Burying the Typewriter: Childhood Under the Eye of the Secret Police (Picador, 2012), was a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week, and her new and selected poems, Lilies from America (Shearsman, 2019), was a Poetry Book Society Special Commendation
