You Try To by Marie Little
You wonder
if you have enough angst
trauma guilt shame rage
to write a really meaty poem
that reads in a minute
but lingers
reappears under the jam lid
or your little one's nails
in the smell of a sheet
the pull of a brown hairband.
You try to draw on past
mistakes
allow yourself a moment to
remember when you didn’t really like yourself
all your belongings in a tea chest that
you used to sit on
that snagged your clothes
but was something to read when vodka
slumped you into
corners.
Your brother had trousers
cut from flour sacks on
some foreign trip –
they were cool but
your tea chest not even
boho in the right light.
You try to imagine saying sorry
to the men
at the bottom of red wine glasses
short sticky nightclub cocktails
whose sweat you licked like
medicine
boys with the wrong teeth
with sisters who might have been friends.
You try to draw on all the heavy
days
the days with too much breath – fast
in inexperienced churchyards
or not enough
to make phone calls
which end with upturned voices
gone limp.
Marie Little (she/her) lives with her husband, three boys and a very silly cat. She used to teach; she now pretends to be a robot/monster/sock and drinks tea from buckets. Marie has work featured/forthcoming in: Ink Sweat & Tears, The Cannon’s Mouth, Cool Rock Repository, Anti-Heroin Chic, Re-Side, Gastropoda and more. @jamsaucer