A little bit of a quick return to one of my favs.
In Late Wife, a she explores her disappearance from one life and reappearance in another as she addresses her former husband, herself, and her new husband in a series of epistolary poems.
Though not satisfied in her first marriage, she laments vanishing from the life she and her husband shared for years.
She then describes the unexpected joys of solitude during her recovery and emotional convalescence.
Finally, in a sequence of sonnets, she speaks to her new husband, whose first wife died from cancer.
One of the most touching poems is when she realizes that her first marriage is over.
For those of you... divorced.. or separated.. maybe you can see a sliver of yourself in the poem.
Pitching Horseshoes
Some of your buddies might come around
for a couple of beers and a game,
but most evenings, you pitched horseshoes
alone. I washed up the dishes
or watered the garden to the thudding
sound of the horseshoe in the pit,
or the practiced ring of metal
against metal, after the silent
arc – end over end. That last
summer, you played a seamless, unscored
game against yourself. Or night
falling. Or coming in the house.
You were good at it. From the porch
I watched you become shadowless,
then featureless, until I knew
you couldn't see either, and still
the dusk rang out, your aim that easy;
between the iron stakes you had driven
into the hard earth yourself, you paced
back and forth as if there were a decision
to make, and you were the one to make it.
A gorgeous and poignant evocation of a moment of personal loss and the beginning of a new journey.
If you liked it.. look for the book.. a Pulitzer Prize winner!
Late Wife ~ Claudia Emerson
It may make you sad.. but it will definitely touch you and remain with you forever!
