Poetry: Selections from Emily Benson

Fall Away

There you go again, driving off in our battered hatchback. There you go to freedom and knowledge and possibility – off you go to grow. You go to grow and I stay home. I stay here, within the perimeter of screens, of these four walls, of the distance I can cover on my own two feet in the space of an hour. I sit here. I plan dinner, wait for the bus. I wash socks. I freeze and freeze in our front room where the heat doesn’t get to; where the baseboards are still missing; where you assure me there is insulation underneath but I don’t believe it because I can feel the cold seep through the smooth pine floorboards. I see the sky through the slats of the blinds on the window before me, see the clouds through the leaves of the ornamental cherry tree. I watch the leaves turn gold and fall away. I imagine those golden leaves, drifting, parts of me, falling – dreams sloughing off, falling away. I cast my thoughts out to the highway where you drive – see it spooling out ahead of you, all the way to the horizon and beyond; all the way to the ocean three thousand miles away. I drift, all heartache and wonder … another cherry leaf turns and tumbles to the cold ground.

Holes

A strong mind

Disciplined, driven

You dreamed of the stars

And worked to catch them

Achieved it, but

Little did you know

And now

You’re

Untethered

By the absence of everything familiar

Who could have fathomed

Such abyss …

Eating away at reality

Boundaries

Reason, and other societal constructs

The drill whines

Punching a 2-milimeter hole into space

Madness soothed

As oxygen drains slowly away

You are as free as you allow yourself to be

Trapped only

By silence

Missing

When I was a kid

I thought “spooning” meant a sex thing

Now every night

We lie nested

First on our right sides

Then rolling together

(My belly button un-suctioning from your skin

With a soft sound that leaves me faintly embarrassed)

To our left

Where you cup my breast gently

Your hand sometimes twitch-squeezing

As you drowse

But last night

I came late to bed

And you seemed fast asleep

You stayed

Curled on your right

Leaving me to roll alone

Like a child

Missing the meaning

Sleepless

How can I sleep when it’s the end of days?

A night heron sounds its strange alien trill

In the dead dark

And after, the stars become brighter

Their light bouncing off the pewter lake

My heart floats

Under no moon

The Ant

Blank with anger

I leave the house

Walk until the water stops me

Sit

Breathe

In

Out

Again

In and out

Easier

Gazing at the sapphire horizon stings my eyes

Stare instead at the patterns in the sand beneath my feet

Feel the hand of the day’s heat heavy on my head

Evaporating thought

I kick a mound of sand over a small red ant

Can’t bear to watch it

Struggling

It looks trapped

Running in tiny circles

Climbing and falling

Again and again

It is mercy or disgust that pushes me to bury it?

I regret the act instantly

Try to reason that the species can lift many times their body weight

But really

Even such strength

Can only endure so much

Emily Benson (she/her) lives in Western New York with her husband and two sons. Previous publications include Daily Drunk Mag’s “Marvelous Verses”Anthology, High Shelf Press, Moist Poetry Journal, Paddler Press, and The Dillydoun Review.